Guild Wars 2

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?

I usually try to avoid mentioning other games on this forum, out of respect, but because it’s integral to the example I’m going to talk about, I’m making an exception.

Once upon a time, I played the game Rift. I played it for a very long time. And although there were moments when the communication from Trion felt minimal, there was a driving force that made me love their communication style on the whole.

They had (and still have, as far as I know) a guy who was basically the one making a lot of the calls concerning the direction of the game and he was a straight shooter to the point that he actually joked once openly on the forums about how he attached pictures of cute animals to emails sent to his coworkers, so that they would be less likely to take offense to his blunt feedback.

Because he mostly knew about the direction of the game at any given moment and was so blunt about things, he would just say things sometimes, like, “We have no plans for X at this time.”

He wasn’t giving anything away most of the time. In fact, looking back on it, I don’t think he shared much more about real plans than you guys do. Probably about the same amount of information.

But because he was so blunt and honest about things that weren’t being worked on, or that the Rift team had no plans for, I feel it helped manage expectations in a lot of cases.

I’m certainly not expecting you to try to copy another company, but I do believe there are ways to sort of “give info” without actually sharing what all is in the works. One way is what my example talks about; essentially, giving information through negation, such that people can go, “Oh, they have no plans for X right now. [Or, oh, this isn’t something that they feel is in line with their goals for the game.] I feel like I know better where they stand on that issue.”

Just something to think about.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

Also Gaile, can we please get the forum’s Search function fixed? It’s been broken for nearly 2 years. I know there’s been heaps of topics on this, but the sad irony is that they get lost in the forums and never acted upon.

Thanks for communicating.

I’m not discounting your other comments, and thanks for them. But I have to quote that bit ^ and respond: Yes, Yes, and Yes again! By all that Dwayna holds holy, I truly wish we could get a functional search engine!

It’s no secret that the forum software has some noticeable issues. We don’t have the ability to fix Search, just as we cannot address a few other things we’d like to tackle. I’m really sorry that it can be difficult to efficiently use the forum. Quite honestly, I’m absolutely delighted when I see someone was able to find links to old threads and provide them in current thread. In fact, I often find myself wondering "How long did it take that poor forum member to find those links? )

This is something we’re looking into, and there may be a couple of ways we can address it, even as we examine both short-term and long-term solutions.

Not that long Gailie we have bookmarks, and I guess some of us have a more detailed list of bookmarks, I’m new’ish so haven’t a massed the links yet.

However I was wondering (giggles) if you knew the search was broken, it does appear to be doing something now however.

I love small spoilers, just saying :P

My opinion on this matter:

I have very little experience with this, so mind that, this is my point of view.

I can’t speak for all the player base, but I can say how I tell my friends about what is coming to the game, when trying to encourage them to play.
It ranges from:
X thing is gonna be added next patch.
They mentioned that Y thing they are looking into.
We are discussing Z thing, it might come to the game in the future.

Note, those 3 examples, in my opinion, are good ways of being transparent with your development process.
Playing GW2 is an investment of time, I, like many other players, simply cannot play more than 1 mmo at a time, I certainly can’t, I like GW2, I want GW2 to be my mmorpg of choice, and I invest my time in the game, and as such, I’m concerned of what its future will be (both as a stakeholder, and as a way to organize my time).
For example, right now there are not many interesting things for me to do in the game, I decided to invest my free time on other games (not mmorpg), and I know, that since I have a date for the return of content (halloween) I can manage my time with it.

There are many things I want added into the game, and some things I want to see returning (SAB!), and to me, it would be great to have the kind of information that allows me to both manage my time, and to invest it in a smart way.
Be it:

• At least, monthly blogs of “state of the game” or “plans for the future”, just plans, I don’t care if you repeat a thousand times that “nothing here is set on stone”, because I will know that at least, X or Y thing is in your minds, in fact, if after that you find out that X or Y feature you cannot add/work/develop, being told so would be great too.
• At least every 6 months have an overall view of what would be added on the following term, this is important. I want to know when do you plan to have a hiatus, how many chapters you plan to release of the Living Story before a break, which recurring festivities will we celebrate (it wasn’t a pleasant surprise to find out on the spot, that dragon bash wasn’t comming back, or that SAB wasn’t comming back). Just plan ahead, and stick to the plan, and if changes have to be done, communicate! It helps us with managing our expectations. In my case, I always expect the best from you.
• Keep on with the CDIs, and the weekly media releases like PoI and Ready UP, it’s a great initiative and I enjoy it.
• Disclosure big questions. Or better put, the answers to those questions. There are some big interrogatives around, that at this point of the game, we players really need to have answered. “Will be an expansion?” “Will be new classes?” “Will be new playable races” “new weapons?” “new dungeons?” “new pvp modes?” etc. This are big questions, and I know that the answer is tricky to give, yet, there is something worse out there: the confusion. Some believe those things are being “secretly developed” or “it will be a surprise”. I love surprises in my daily life, but I hate them when I try to invest my stuff ( be it money or time), and I understand most people that get upset with this. If you really can’t answer those questions, because you really don’t know, or haven’t planned it yet, don’t just say “it’s not out of the table”, don’t say what we “wan’t to read”, say what we need to read: “we don’t have plans for it yet, we are not working on it yet, we will communicate when we decide to take that path”.

Communication has improved a lot the latest months, and I feel that you guys are putting a lot of effort on it, thank you for that.
Just my opinion.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Addendum to above: That book I used as an “example” sounded dangerously close to a trashy romance novel. Just wanted to add — lest I lose some credibility with y’all-- that’s decidedly not my genre of choice.

Yeah…

Anyway, I like surprises. I don’t even need to be teased. I like the feeling of “Oh, WOW!” and “oh…”. Though I probably won’t be too impressed by what I’m seeing with the “oh…”. Personally, I don’t need the dev team to tell all but I know that other people (through having been married to such a person) just need to know. A little bit of something every now and then can’t hurt.

Actually, that portal pic is almost perfect (for me). It doesn’t really tell me anything, I don’t feel teased, but I know that something is coming.

I agree on the spoilers issue. I have a number of authors whose novels I will buy “sight unseen.” Connie Willis, for example. With eBooks I can even avoid seeing the cover. I just load up the new book and start reading the first paragraph and let her pull me into whatever world she’s made.

I did feel the teaser trailer for the attack on the Pale Tree gave away too much as you describe. I spent the whole time waiting for the windows to go dark. Otoh … I then had a grueling, long fight as I figured out the mechanics on my poor squishy Thief. (I know it was a yawn fest for some super players, but as someone that’s got the Dungeonmaster title — not on the Thief — and has done most all the LS meta achievements, I think I do have some clue how to play). I was involved, I was cussing foully at the foes (I don’t usually cuss, and my husband seemed rather worried as I screamed “Die you (f’er)! Die!” If I’d seen a video and read strats, I’d never have been so engaged.

That said, not everything new coming is new story. Are you working on a new profession? New weapons? A new zone? You can say that much without giving away any of the thrill of discovery. While CDI’s are just brainstorms, not promises, do they indicate things more on the table than other things? Saying so could give some depth to the hope of those contributing.

The cinematics introducing Mordremoth’s expansion, with vines strangling forts, those were good. Though in that case I think it’s because they were bridging sequences; in game we arrived to find the vines already erupted rather than having them suddenly spring up around us. Thus they were scenes in the past by the time we entered the story. Things like that could be used to advance parts of the story that don’t need to be experienced moment by moment while giving us visuals to add to our understanding of what we’re seeing in game. I’m rambling, I’m sure I didn’t express the idea very well, but hopefully the gist got through.

Labjax.2465:

I usually try to avoid mentioning other games on this forum, out of respect, but because it’s integral to the example I’m going to talk about, I’m making an exception.

Once upon a time, I played the game Rift. I played it for a very long time. And although there were moments when the communication from Trion felt minimal, there was a driving force that made me love their communication style on the whole.

They had (and still have, as far as I know) a guy who was basically the one making a lot of the calls concerning the direction of the game and he was a straight shooter to the point that he actually joked once openly on the forums about how he attached pictures of cute animals to emails sent to his coworkers, so that they would be less likely to take offense to his blunt feedback.

Because he mostly knew about the direction of the game at any given moment and was so blunt about things, he would just say things sometimes, like, “We have no plans for X at this time.”

He wasn’t giving anything away most of the time. In fact, looking back on it, I don’t think he shared much more about real plans than you guys do. Probably about the same amount of information.

But because he was so blunt and honest about things that weren’t being worked on, or that the Rift team had no plans for, I feel it helped manage expectations in a lot of cases.

I’m certainly not expecting you to try to copy another company, but I do believe there are ways to sort of “give info” without actually sharing what all is in the works. One way is what my example talks about; essentially, giving information through negation, such that people can go, “Oh, they have no plans for X right now. [Or, oh, this isn’t something that they feel is in line with their goals for the game.] I feel like I know better where they stand on that issue.”

Just something to think about.

On the subject of telling people what’s not being worked on: Super Adventure Box. There goes the hope of telling people that something isn’t being worked on in an exploding cloud of pixellated glory.

nightwulf.1986:

Labjax.2465:

I usually try to avoid mentioning other games on this forum, out of respect, but because it’s integral to the example I’m going to talk about, I’m making an exception.

Once upon a time, I played the game Rift. I played it for a very long time. And although there were moments when the communication from Trion felt minimal, there was a driving force that made me love their communication style on the whole.

They had (and still have, as far as I know) a guy who was basically the one making a lot of the calls concerning the direction of the game and he was a straight shooter to the point that he actually joked once openly on the forums about how he attached pictures of cute animals to emails sent to his coworkers, so that they would be less likely to take offense to his blunt feedback.

Because he mostly knew about the direction of the game at any given moment and was so blunt about things, he would just say things sometimes, like, “We have no plans for X at this time.”

He wasn’t giving anything away most of the time. In fact, looking back on it, I don’t think he shared much more about real plans than you guys do. Probably about the same amount of information.

But because he was so blunt and honest about things that weren’t being worked on, or that the Rift team had no plans for, I feel it helped manage expectations in a lot of cases.

I’m certainly not expecting you to try to copy another company, but I do believe there are ways to sort of “give info” without actually sharing what all is in the works. One way is what my example talks about; essentially, giving information through negation, such that people can go, “Oh, they have no plans for X right now. [Or, oh, this isn’t something that they feel is in line with their goals for the game.] I feel like I know better where they stand on that issue.”

Just something to think about.

On the subject of telling people what’s not being worked on: Super Adventure Box. There goes the hope of telling people that something isn’t being worked on in an exploding cloud of pixellated glory.

That wasn’t the problem, the problem was timing.
We were told that SAB wasn’t being worked on, right before the time we were expecting it to come back, that was the problem.
Many of the players that were upset about it, weren’t because SAB didn’t come back at some random time, but because, given the previous releases, they were expecting it to come back at that particular time.

It’s the same with a TV show, if you get your weekly episode of The Walking Dead, and after you wait 5 days, on the 6th, you read “there won’t be an episode this week”, you will feel dissapointed, of course, I don’t condone the so called “passionate” reactions, but again, having a schedule always do wonders, or being told after the episode finishes “next week we won’t be having one”.

@Gaile:
I know what you mean, but at the same time, there is a substantial difference. You don’t spoil yourself because you will be reading it, to improve your experience. But what if they only give you the back cover, and then tell you “wait 3 months until we send you the book”. Then “not reading the spoilers” feels a bit different.

DonQuack.9025:

Phenn.5167:

I’ve seen several online, large-playerbase game developers do an excellent job of what I’ve outlined above.

like?

I’ll give you a hint: It starts with a “B” and rhymes with the word “lizzard”.

Yes, i know, different ball park, but the point being is that they give away everything, months in advance. Sure, its spoilers galore, but you gotta give the consumer benefit of the doubt that if they don’t want to know about it, they simply won’t read about it.

That goes back to that slip cover thing Gaile just said. Its not like the author or publisher is ramming that slip cover down your throat or anything abrasive like that. When you pick up the book, you choose not to read it. Easy peasy.

Its not worth arguing, really. In a year of reading forums off and on, i’ve seen alot of good requests, issues, and etc. Its rare one gets addressed, so i’ve grown the open that the company policy towards the consumer is much like Square Enic back in the FFXI days and that was to just randomly do stuff and explain it when it drops with very little advertizement.

People, you just gotta lower your expectations and take it for what it is. Thats all. You’ll sleep better at night if ya do.

To give you another point of view to the matter:

In LotRO they handle upcoming patches by announcing this kinds of posts maybe 4-5 times a year. They also have public test servers and developer chat with players.

“Hello all! I’m Aaron “Rowan” Campbell, Executive Producer of The Lord of the Rings Online.

Update 15 is getting close, and the Dawnless Day is upon us! Our last major update for the year goes into public Beta testing this Friday (October 10) on Bullroarer. We have a lot to polish up and fine-tune in the release, but are eager to get your feedback on the new Beorning class, quests in Central Gondor, and Pelargir Epic Battle.

Here are some quick highlights:

Beorning: As a Beorning, you hail from the line of skin-changers that descends from Grimbeorn and Beorn himself. Beornings are closely related to the Rohirrim (and other Men), but are larger and more rugged. Call on the ancestral knowledge of your people with The Roar trait line, strike down your enemies with The Claw trait line, or unleash your wrath to defend your allies with The Hide trait line. When Beornings gather sufficient Wrath they can take the form of a great bear to unleash devastating attacks on their foes. Every new Beorning character will start in the brand new starting area: Vales of Anduin. Visit Grimbeorn’s Lodge while you get comfortable with your own strength.

Central Gondor: The dark clouds of the Dawnless Day loom overhead! Push forward into the Ringló Vale, Dor-en-Ernil, and Lebennin. New quests are available as you drive back the Corsairs, Haradrim, and Half-trolls who now pillage the shores of Gondor. The latest book of your Epic Story resolves in the beleaguered city of Pelargir, home to Gondor’s fleet.

Pelargir Epic Battle: This battle changes up the rules of epic battles! Instead of defending a key point, you will infiltrate the city of Pelargir and clear the way for Aragorn and the Army of the Dead. This offensive battle allows you to proceed at your own pace, completing optional objectives as you advance.

You may have noticed that the Legendary Item Update is not in this list. The team has made a lot of progress on updating Imbued Legendary Items to grow with you, but we’re taking more time to balance and refine the system. We plan to release this update with Update 16 in April 2015 (or earlier!), along with LOTRO’s Eighth Anniversary Update.

Features still to come in 2015:

Osgiliath: We’re advancing north, and now almost in sight of both Minas Tirith and The Black Gate. Osgiliath is a city overrun by Sauron’s army. Expect new adventures as you journey along the Anduin.

Minas Tirith: As the war escalates even further, you will journey to the City of Kings and participate in the Siege of Minas Tirith. Minas Tirith is the largest structure we’ve ever placed in Middle-earth, and the largest city!

There are many other areas that we continue to invest in, such as Roving Threats, a new type of challenge for fellowships, in Central Gondor. Looking forward to Update 15 and beyond!

Rowan

Executive Producer
The Lord of the Rings Online™ "

There’s also mention of a delay of major thing about weapon system in that post plain and honest.

I don’t want to tell to copy from other companies but just giving POV’s to this discussion. In my opinion Public Testing is something that benefits both company and playerbase to get best results (see NPE confusion with feature pack).

Baltzenger, I think maybe what we’re asking is not to get the back cover three months in advance, but just to be told the author has a book coming (possibly even which series it is in). Amazon tells me all the time about books coming from S&SF authors whose works I’ve bought; some of them I am so determined not to miss that I pre-order rather than just hoping to notice it in Recommendations when I’m looking for my next novel.

Again, no details on the content. Just a heads up that it’s coming down the pike and roughly what flavor it is (I do remember being vastly disappointed when I picked up Orson Scott Card’s Saints, back when he was a sight-unseen writer for me, and found it to essentially be a historical documentary with a few fantastical bits. Um, apologies to those who believe in those fantastical bits, but for them it was even more a documentary, right? I expected a fantasy novel and didn’t get one).

slamfunction.7462:

DonQuack.9025:

Phenn.5167:

I’ve seen several online, large-playerbase game developers do an excellent job of what I’ve outlined above.

like?

I’ll give you a hint: It starts with a “B” and rhymes with the word “lizzard”.

Yes, i know, different ball park, but the point being is that they give away everything, months in advance. Sure, its spoilers galore, but you gotta give the consumer benefit of the doubt that if they don’t want to know about it, they simply won’t read about it.

That goes back to that slip cover thing Gaile just said. Its not like the author or publisher is ramming that slip cover down your throat or anything abrasive like that. When you pick up the book, you choose not to read it. Easy peasy.

Its not worth arguing, really. In a year of reading forums off and on, i’ve seen alot of good requests, issues, and etc. Its rare one gets addressed, so i’ve grown the open that the company policy towards the consumer is much like Square Enic back in the FFXI days and that was to just randomly do stuff and explain it when it drops with very little advertizement.

People, you just gotta lower your expectations and take it for what it is. Thats all. You’ll sleep better at night if ya do.

About the Blizzard case. I was a Diablo 3 player since its release, and I have to say, what kept the game breathing until it’s expansion, was communication. I won’t say it was top notch, it wasn’t, but it showed the importance of managing the playerbase expectations.
There was some good done there, and some bad too, specially regarding the “pvp” additions of the game.

I’d like to know why ANET took GW2 in such a different direction from GW, concerning the abandonment of the lore, severing the connection with the gods and leading to the disappearance of the god’s realms, not expanding the world (instead choosing to rehash existing zones), relying on temporary content when permanent content would sate most players wants and desires. My wants? I want to feel like this game is connected to the game that drew me in back in 2005. I want to see the updated versions of the Underworld and Fissure of Woe, as well as the other god’s realms that were never fully realized. I want WvW (the mists) to not look like a carbon copy of Anywhere, Kryta. There is no majesty or intrigue. Yea, it looks amazing, but it just feels bland after 2 years of the same old. LS is not the solution, especially since it seems to be nothing more than a pulpit lately. By the way, is it OK to still be sore about the election? Evon’s path would have been much more interesting, IMHO. It would have given the game the connection to the past that I spoke of earlier. And while we’re on the topic of fractals, why on earth would you make multiple dungeons all have the same entrance? I understand that many of the fractals take place at a different point in time, but not all of them. The world needs to be expanded, and filled with…meh, I’m wasting my time. To be honest, I haven’t played in months due to disappointment with the LS and the PC stuff going on there, and I see the rehashing of current zones to be nothing more than an artificial way to make the world seem like it’s still full of players. It wouldn’t need to be artificial if you added more permanent content to keep the vets interested. Check out this map:

http://h11.abload.de/img/tyria_mollweidedfjo9.png

Does it make sense to have the entire world of Tyria waiting to be filled up with ever more adventures and lands, yet keep us cooped up in a tiny fraction of it? No. And what of its inhabitants? What happened to the Largos? Underwater content? Or underwater combat for that matter? Said map above? Huge. And if you add in the areas covered in ocean and seas? My God, the possibilities. Yet it seems ANET is determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory regarding the longevity of its masterpiece.

I seriously hope it turns around, and the world begins to grow and take on the color of its former self. If not? /shrug I guess I’ll just be done and go my separate way, or back to GW.

Donari.5237:

Baltzenger, I think maybe what we’re asking is not to get the back cover three months in advance, but just to be told the author has a book coming (possibly even which series it is in). Amazon tells me all the time about books coming from S&SF authors whose works I’ve bought; some of them I am so determined not to miss that I pre-order rather than just hoping to notice it in Recommendations when I’m looking for my next novel.

Again, no details on the content. Just a heads up that it’s coming down the pike and roughly what flavor it is (I do remember being vastly disappointed when I picked up Orson Scott Card’s Saints, back when he was a sight-unseen writer for me, and found it to essentially be a historical documentary with a few fantastical bits. Um, apologies to those who believe in those fantastical bits, but for them it was even more a documentary, right? I expected a fantasy novel and didn’t get one).

Oh, sorry, I didn’t really meant it in that way. I don’t expect Anet to deliver “back covers” to us early, not at all, but I feel that not wanting to deliver information because it will contain spoilers is not a good option either.
I really don’t want to be told anything about the story or the lore before it is released, but things more mechanical, or schedules on updates, I do want.
To be honest, and it might sound a bit unfair…I do feel a bit dissapointed for the amount of “breaks” the content delivery has taken during this year, I was expecting something different. I know there might be very powerful reasons for that, but at the same time, why was I expecting something different? I understand it’s partially my fault, but at the same time, there must be reason behind it.
Specially about Living Story, I understood the model when it was presented, as a steady delivery of content every two weeks, and I was sold for that. I didn’t care about expansions, or big patches, nothing, I was fine with it. But then if you look at the calendar and the amount of content delivered during this year, it doesn’t look that promising. Particularly the Dragon Reach part, that felt it was divided to fill a quota, and not really because the story justified it. Again…just my opinion.

edit: Sorry, I forgot:
!http://holycuteness.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Screenshot-27-8-2012-21_33_47.jpg!

yea for me its not knowing the direction of the game
like what aspects are being focused on?
am i going to enjoy this content i am waiting for or is it just gonna be a bunch of stuff i don’t like
Like hypothetically i only like dungeons
is my area of the game that i love (dungeons) being worked on or is it going to be comander tags for wvw?
i have no problem with other areas of the game being worked on but really for me its a question of when do you plan to work on this area of the game rather than individual features because at the moment it really has this
… i dunno
like u say we currently have no plans for x and its like… well will you?
its hard to keep excited for the game when it just kinda feels like you wont be working on the part of the game i enjoy ever again ( i know you will , but thats just the feeling i get)

again that was hypothetical
i actually love the lore and living story. lol if you could do something about the long as breaks (feels like the worlds on pause and kinda ruins the whole immersion thing that you were creating with the “living world” thing)
thatd be great ^^ lol but yea not the forum for that

thanks for reading

Gaile Gray.6029:

But you know we have said, officially, that SAB will return in the future, right? I don’t know that everyone understood that, but yes, it’ll be back. I honestly and truly don’t know when — and even more honestly, I don’t know if the return has been scheduled. However, I heard the “it will be back” from Colin, and I pretty much rely on that guy for knowing what’s what.

Gaile, I appreciate your efforts here, and I know most of the other forum users do as well. With regard to SAB however, even though you say it’ll be back, Colin says it’ll be back as well, and I am well aware of how true Colin’s word is (precursor crafting says hi!). I think what you have to remember is that there are many forum users here with considerably longer memories than what some devs give us credit for. Thankfully we don’t need a Search function on our memories.

I just think it’s unfortunate that a lot of players let negative experiences guide their hopes for this game, and the disappointment of a lot of things that have come to pass so far, regardless of the good intentions of the devs, a lot of it just hasn’t worked out the way we though (or hoped) it would, and in the timeliness that would have been appropriate.

Gaile Gray.6029:

A teaser has to be carefully devised — for a book, a movie, a game. I find the portal and the date to be enticing. Others here do as well. It’s ok — your mileage may vary. But I don’t think we (as devs) want to go the way of TMI for upcoming content because that takes away the joy of discovery and the sense of wonder that everyone will experience as they play the new episode.

Again, just a personal opinion, but as you can see, something I have thought about quite a bit!

You make some good points, Gaile. Also, for a little bit of history, I remember you made an appearance in Rata Rum one day and subsequently became swarmed by eager players to meet a community member of Anet. I was one of them You even answered a question I had amongst all that chaos.

Going back to the image for the Living Story; teasing future media ( film, novel, video game) is tricky and should be well thought-out. Agree. However, there’s been a lot of friction between players and Anet when it comes to transparency. For months players are left in the dark in regards to what’s coming down the pipe whereas other MMO’s entice/notify players with images, trailers, emails and announcements you name it. The Living Story is supposed to be Anet’s version of expansion-like content, but an image of a portal doesn’t tell us much of anything. As it stands, Dry Top so far is the only new zone to come by in a long while and may vets including myself were hoping for more at the two year juncture.

So, if Anet had adopted GW1’s method of annual expansions we’d be preparing for our second (or delving into the 2nd expansion). The well of new content has run very dry. I feel more meat on the bone to restore the excitement and fervor we all enjoyed at launch.

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].”

Look, there will always be people asking for more. That is NEVER a good reason not to give as much info as you can, because the people who will always be asking for more will always be asking no matter how much you give them, while everyone else will be happier and happier the more you offer.

But yes, you should always keep us updated as to which issues you’re aware we aren’t satisfied with, and ideally you should keep us updated as to what you intend to do about it (or ask us if you have no ideas), and even more ideally when situations change you let us know that they have, and why. The more information we’re given about the hows and whys of things, the more likely we are to understand. The less we’re told, the less likely we’ll understand. The NPE is a clear example of this, as while it may have made sense inside of ANet, lots of it still makes little sense to anyone outside it.

We even had a developer come on a couple months back and blame US for the Spring trait overhaul, when of course if you guys had kept us in the loop about it we could have told you that none of us would want anything like that to happen.

TLDR; the more information, the better, ALWAYS. There are costs to more information, but they are the same costs you pay for less information.

I love books. But I never read the slipcover or the back of the book. Why? Because usually it says too bloomin’ much!

I don’t want spoilers for a book or movie either, but I definitely DO want “spoilers” for MMOs. I don’t want to know who lives and who dies, I don’t want story specifics, but I do want gameplay specifics, I want to know about upcoming gameplay changes, I want to know about upcoming zones, new content, new things to do, that sort of thing. Take season one, leave out the specifics about the Zephyrites and the leyline network and the vines attacking everything, sure, but I would have appreciated if three or more months before the season started, we were told that you would be slowly unlocking the Drytop minizone over the course of the event, that it would involve Zephyrite crystal jumping elements, that it would involve a zone-wide meta event chain (with some details about how that would work), and a new craftable backpack item. The only story hints I’d want would be that we’re headed after the dragon discovered at the end of the last story.

If anyone definitely doesn’t like spoilers, then they don’t have to read the hype pages, simple as that.

I would definitely like to see at least some “long term” for this game. I’d like a developer to come on and say “we plan to be adding 2-3 new zones over the next six to 12 months, and we’re adding a new weapon set for each class, a bunch of new utilities,” etc. They don’t have to get too specific about these features or where these zones will be, but let us know that they are being worked on, that it’s not going to be more of the same feature dribble we’ve been getting. I want BIG!

Biggest issue I can see with transparency is the following

There doesn’t seem to be any consolidation. Some stuff shows up on reddit, some on twitter, some on facebook, and some here. Something might be caught somewhere in a PoI or a Ready-Up, and unless you’re using some kind of E-Wizardry, you’re going to miss it.

Gaile mentioned that SAB is in fact going to be returning. I didn’t know this, must have missed it in the ridiculous pile of drek that we have here. People are saying that there’s no plans for new dungeons. Must have missed that one too. With a forum that’s nigh impossible to use and information scattered to the winds, how am I, the end user, supposed to even have a chance of knowing any of this?

THAT is the biggest issue with transparency. It isn’t so much a lack of information(of note: there’s a lack of information), its the ability to access the information.

Togashi Jack.9531:

Biggest issue I can see with transparency is the following

There doesn’t seem to be any consolidation. Some stuff shows up on reddit, some on twitter, some on facebook, and some here. Something might be caught somewhere in a PoI or a Ready-Up, and unless you’re using some kind of E-Wizardry, you’re going to miss it.

Gaile mentioned that SAB is in fact going to be returning. I didn’t know this, must have missed it in the ridiculous pile of drek that we have here. People are saying that there’s no plans for new dungeons. Must have missed that one too. With a forum that’s nigh impossible to use and information scattered to the winds, how am I, the end user, supposed to even have a chance of knowing any of this?

THAT is the biggest issue with transparency. It isn’t so much a lack of information(of note: there’s a lack of information), its the ability to access the information.

Well, to be fair, the Dev Tracker do wonders in this matter.
Most of the things that go on reddit are reposts of news sites, interviews or the forums.
And I have yet to find anything relevant or unknown on twitter or facebook apart from members of Anet leaving the team, or things like that.

It would help though, to se the “hot topics” as you enter the forum, like in most forums, but the Dev Tracker is a good tool in my opinion.
The most controversial information on the latest months, has come in the form of interviews during cons, or for news sites, and I believe that this “controversial information” wasn’t meant to be like that, good example is the case with SAB and the dungeons.

The biggest problem is this in my opinion : Anet has to regain the trust of the player base if people if there is to be any meaningful communication between the players and the devs.

The problem is that a lot of stuff was thrown around to generate hype. Stuff like : Precursor Crafting, Fractal Leaderboards, new legendary weapons and other legendary types etc.

These are things that players care a lot about and as a result when nothing else was heard on this front and all these were kinda left to disappear into thin air with no news players got a bit doubtful.

Now statements like “SAB will be back in the future” don’t hold out as much against the players as they might have once did because a part of that trust has been eroded.

I think some of these issues should be addressed. There are probably many more but until Anet shows the desire to make good on their hype promises or at least tell us what’s going on I don’t really see how the players can put much stock in whatever’s being posted on the forums.

A lot of cool stuff has been announced or hinted towards but I find that there’s a voice in the back of my head always saying " what if it’s just a PR stunt and nothing will happen".

So that’d be my 2 cents on the matter. Hope it helps.

There is definitely a thing such as too much information. And I wouldn’t want all too many spoilers for future Living World story tidbits (though, I have the option to not read about it and/or watch trailers, even if some spoilerish information was provided on some release web page. I can take the step to prevent it getting spoiled for me by not seeking information on it, the same way you don’t need to read the description of a book and/or watch a movie trailer). But still, some more transparency wouldn’t be unwelcome. E.g., the NPE could’ve been mentioned in advance, not just get dropped like a bombshell without no logical explanation on the development behind it. You shared the logical ideas behind it as people raged and got frustrated (over some things that was stated to be bugged, but I question if they actually were, rather than rushed “fixes” done, thanks to player feedback and discontent), but why wasn’t it revealed sooner, with that logical thinking behind the implementation explained before the outcry. E.g., “In the upcoming months, we are planning to create a better experience for new players of Guild Wars 2, and MMORPG games as a whole. We will be removing bundle items in the immediate starter areas, this is because…” (sorry, I still don’t see why you did that, heh). “…these changes are not yet finalized, and things are highly likely to change during its development. We do currently not have a ETA on the release of this new system.”

As an example of transparency, I loved that Colin basically gave us something to get excited about during his PAX 2013 interview(s), mentioning a Legendary trinket, Precursor crafting, both as things that should be seen before the end of 2013 it was said. This was transparency, exciting information! Hammers for Engineer’s was even brought up. I don’t play my Engineer but got super excited for those who do. But there is a problem with such transparency too, more so when they aren’t followed through on (for whatever reason). He said these things should come before the end of 2013 (not the Hammer for Engineer mind you), and that yearly end came and went. It’s now practically a year since he stated those things, and the excitement turns sour, you wonder what in the world happened. This and that was to come, it sounded so certain, then nothing. No words about it since. And there the transparency falls short. I don’t think it should ever be stated that x and y is coming within a period of z, or if it is planned for a very specific window and that information is shared, but then there are unfortunate delays—then at the very least it needs to be transparency included on that as well. You shouldn’t say, expect this and that before the end of the year, then when it doesn’t happen, you don’t even address it. You zip your lips and go silent. That’s just frustrating. Don’t get me wrong with this example, I’m not blaming Colin here for anything, I don’t hold a grudge against him. He is clearly passionate about the game, you could tell from these interviews. He wants the best for the game as much as any player does and were excited about sharing some plans. I just wish it had been followed up on, either by explaining that this is likely to be put on the sideline for a year/indefinite time, as you have more pressing matters to focus your development time into right now, but that it’s not forgotten, or better yet, when it’s been mentioned, that it was actually finalized, and shipped.

I understand that it’s hard to be open about things. I know that players aren’t rational, they are passionate, as are developers of course. Some more information on things to come, especially things you have nearly finished developing, would be nice though. Proper information at that when it’s rather large changes such as what the NPE patch introduced. Why, can help explain the choices and philosophy behind something. In advance, can help prevent a shock and outrage. CDI’s are great as well.

I don’t know. The forums bring up the whole Precursor Crafting thing again, and again. Yet the Devs posted about it being delayed, and then delayed again, and in fact, stated they had to basically start over with it.

Yet no one seems to remember, even though it’s been posted the Devs stated this many times.

Thus, I’m not sure ‘transparency’ does any good. It seems like many only hear (read) what they wish to, and ignore what they don’t. /shrug

Harper.4173:

~snip~

The problem is that a lot of stuff was thrown around to generate hype. Stuff like : Precursor Crafting, Fractal Leaderboards, new legendary weapons and other legendary types etc.

These are things that players care a lot about and as a result when nothing else was heard on this front and all these were kinda left to disappear into thin air with no news players got a bit doubtful.

~snip~

Here’s my take, those two examples were mentioned in 2013, it’s now almost the end of 2014 and there hasn’t been an announcement that they are NOT working on them, which to me means they are still working on them and are just having difficulty getting them to work as they would like, but that’s just a supposition and my personal opinion is I don’t really care about getting a lot of advanced information.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I don’t know. The forums bring up the whole Precursor Crafting thing again, and again. Yet the Devs posted about it being delayed, and then delayed again, and in fact, stated they had to basically start over with it.

Yet no one seems to remember, even though it’s been posted the Devs stated this many times.

Thus, I’m not sure ‘transparency’ does any good. It seems like many only hear (read) what they wish to, and ignore what they don’t. /shrug

I haven’t seen any mentions of it during 2014. If it’s in some random forum posts, yes, of course players will miss it. It’s not always about ignoring what you don’t want to hear, it can be that you haven’t even seen it, since it gets buried within hours as new topics and posts are done. Transparency should in majority come through official posts on the website, where they can have specific topics linked for discussion on what is being showcased, should that be desired by the development team. That way it’s less likely to fly past people. It’s not like Search works on these forums, it searches the active page (as if you were to do a Ctrl+F search through your browser), not the entire forum as a whole.

Now we do have the Dev Tracker, but that unfortunately has once in a while gotten flooded with responses in regards to tickets and delayed handling times (which surprise me, as I have always gotten a response within just 3-4 hours of submitting my ticket, their support team is the most stellar one I’ve ever encountered in this industry—ArenaNet, give those guys and gals some cake! They deserve it!), stuff not related to the game and its advancement. It’s also a bit out of context at times, and you sift through several posts where they are just being humans, interacting, which is awesome and I wouldn’t want that changed for the world. Even if it feels like there’s a lack of transparency at times, seeing all the communication they do, especially Gaile, is awesome nonetheless.

Gaile Gray.6029:

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?”

Ok, that’s fine, but take this as an example.

People are basing their expectations over fixes to the personal story merely on the fact that neither the removal of an entire plotline nor the shuffling of the last two chapters makes any apparent narrative or practical sense.

So, to put it bluntly, everyone partecipating in that thread (me included, altough I’m yet to post there) is simply hoping that such an ill-conceived alteration to one of the main narration devices of the game isn’t permanent, simply due to the fact that no quality game they’ve played before had such absurd plot inconsistencies. Inconsistencies that, mind you, weren’t there before and were introduced now, all for no apparent reason.

This is happening because, so far, no one has even given them a proper answer about the state of things. Is this a definitive change? Can we expect the story to be put back in order, or at least the blatant plot holes to be fixed with alterations to dialogues or further reordering of the affected story steps? Maybe you decided to leave it as it is, so why not saying so and put the proverbial nail in the coffin to the problem?

To avoid having to give explanations and estimated times for any hypothetical fix, you’re leaving people in the dark, without any indication about an issue they care about. This only leads to discontent, negative speculation and wild guesses. Whatever happened to the infamous “We don’t have an ETA for this” and “Soon™” replies any game developer seems to love so much? I mean, really, once you have stated your position about a game issue, is it really that much of a problem to cope with some insistence from a few players who can’t get a hint? Why don’t you ignore them at this stage, instead of everyone else?

I think eveyone can see why you can’t always come forward with information. But, to carry on with your book analogy, there are degrees: too much information in the book slipcover might condition your approach to the reading, but if the author doesn’t put anything on the front cover or in the slipcover, chances are you won’t ever get interested by the book at all, unless you know it’s good by word of mouth. Or if the title of book is so ridicolous to lure you to it…

As an example of transparency, I loved that Colin basically gave us something to get excited about during his PAX 2013 interview(s), mentioning a Legendary trinket, Precursor crafting, both as things that should be seen before the end of 2013 it was said. This was transparency, exciting information! Hammers for Engineer’s was even brought up. I don’t play my Engineer but got super excited for those who do. But there is a problem with such transparency too, more so when they aren’t followed through on (for whatever reason). He said these things should come before the end of 2013 (not the Hammer for Engineer mind you), and that yearly end came and went. It’s now practically a year since he stated those things, and the excitement turns sour, you wonder what in the world happened

But the problem here isn’t that they were too transparent, it was that they were transparent, and then they weren’t.

What you gave was an excellent example of the transparency they should have. The problem is, those rough deadlines came and went and we’ve still heard nothing. Clearly they either stopped working on them, or they are still in development. Which is it? They haven’t said anything. This leaves players disgruntled, but if they wanted to solve that disgruntlement, the solution is not to never have told us in the first place, it’s that when things change, when reasons pop up that they can’t do something, TELL US. Explain to use why they either had to give up entirely, or why it’s taking longer than they planned. If they are still working on it, keep setting rough timelines and explain why they aren’t met. Keep us in the loop and there’s no problem, the only thing that’s a problem is radio silence.

And yes, of course there will be people that will get upset if a feature is cut even after it’s been fully explained, but there’s nothing to be done about that, don’t let those people ruin things for everyone else, including yourselves. Rip the bandaid off when you have to and let us know what’s going on.

Nah Anet said they’re working on fixes for it.

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?

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond.

For me, (as I’ve not been around long) long standing issues like the Necromancer’s state of pve health could be one thing to address. Something along the lines of “we know necro isn’t doing so well in pve right now, we’re aware of it and have a long term plan to make some changes about it, though we can’t give an exact date, we can give you an update in x monthscloser to the time”.

even ambiguous acknowledgement of issues is a plus. I know I’d much rather know something was happening about a certain issue without any solid dates or hard facts about what’s going to change than just not know anything at all until a few weeks/days before the change happens.

Gaile Gray.6029:

But you know we have said, officially, that SAB will return in the future, right? I don’t know that everyone understood that, but yes, it’ll be back. I honestly and truly don’t know when — and even more honestly, I don’t know if the return has been scheduled. However, I heard the “it will be back” from Colin, and I pretty much rely on that guy for knowing what’s what.

I was one of the ones clamouring for a SAB update and I was, and still am, really grateful for you getting us that information.

However, to answer your earlier question about first stage information being satisfying, I think the important thing to note is that a lot of players feel trust has been broken. It is absolutely fine to say “We’re aware of this situation, and we’re working on it” if the people you say this to trust that this implies actual action is happening.

The problem is that things like the precursor hunt, new legendaries, bringing in new content, fractal leaderboards, fixing traits, SAB etc. have damaged trust. It isn’t that these things haven’t happened, it’s that we weren’t told that they were delayed, why they were delayed, and in many cases if they are even coming at all.

There are two options that I can see:

1) Give full and detailed information about future plans, like we got initially, so that players feel comfortable about the future of the game. If a delay happens, let us know, and maybe explain why where you can.

OR

2) Give the first level information only but then actually deliver results on that issue quickly and effectively so that players trust you when you say it and feel comfortable about the future of the game.

I appreciate the work you’ve been doing Gaile, this is intended as an answer to your question, not a criticism.

Paul.4081:

Eg. New player get’s an exotic, bid of 1 copper is there…gratz new player you just lost a ton of gold.

Except it sells to the highest bid. So the chance of what you are saying is low.

Overall, I find the new TP easier. I’ll agree the TP contact should have been left in Queensdale just outside Divinity’s Reach as the one they DID leave in at the trading post is busted 90% of the time for a large number of players, myself included.

I think the issue about precursor-crafting could have been handeled with transparency. It’s not a story-spoiler and people are already waiting for it, because the rng is a problem for many who don’t have the cash/time to gather those huge amounts of gold.

I liked how Anet stated that it had to be delayed because of the new wardrobe, but why not be a bit more specific? Why not state some problems that came up during development? Why not state (if that was the case) that the final version just wasn’t fun enough and has been completely scratched? Mawdrey II and collections look like these could be a part of a precursor scavenger hunt, why not discuss this with the players a bit?

Personally I think that the secrecy about this topic drains hope about ever getting precursor crafting. Naysayers repost the old posts where we heard about precursor crafting and sell it as "Anet isn’t listening / is breaking promises / …) which could be avoided imho.

My suspicion (as I heard about communication problems inside the team) would be that a single dev. is working on this, but didn’t get the memo about all the general changes to the item system… so the wardrobe, collections, etc. interfered with the development on p.c. and that’s why we haven’t seen any of it until now. I might be totally wrong.

(what would be fine for me: just announce that p.c. has been canceled and a new way to aquire precursors for the next new legendaries is been worked on. At least it would be something.)

Zaklex.6308:

Harper.4173:

~snip~

The problem is that a lot of stuff was thrown around to generate hype. Stuff like : Precursor Crafting, Fractal Leaderboards, new legendary weapons and other legendary types etc.

These are things that players care a lot about and as a result when nothing else was heard on this front and all these were kinda left to disappear into thin air with no news players got a bit doubtful.

~snip~

Here’s my take, those two examples were mentioned in 2013, it’s now almost the end of 2014 and there hasn’t been an announcement that they are NOT working on them, which to me means they are still working on them and are just having difficulty getting them to work as they would like, but that’s just a supposition and my personal opinion is I don’t really care about getting a lot of advanced information.

Yes – that’s great – and certainly could be the case but in that situation I’d like someone to just come to the forums and post :

“Remember those things we promised a year ago and didn’t say a word about them after? Well they’ve been delayed because of x and y.”

or maybe :

“We are still working on them but there’s some difficulty and we’re not sure when we can deliver -certainly not within the time frame we initially proposed”.

Ohoni.6057:

As an example of transparency, I loved that Colin basically gave us something to get excited about during his PAX 2013 interview(s), mentioning a Legendary trinket, Precursor crafting, both as things that should be seen before the end of 2013 it was said. This was transparency, exciting information! Hammers for Engineer’s was even brought up. I don’t play my Engineer but got super excited for those who do. But there is a problem with such transparency too, more so when they aren’t followed through on (for whatever reason). He said these things should come before the end of 2013 (not the Hammer for Engineer mind you), and that yearly end came and went. It’s now practically a year since he stated those things, and the excitement turns sour, you wonder what in the world happened

But the problem here isn’t that they were too transparent, it was that they were transparent, and then they weren’t.

What you gave was an excellent example of the transparency they should have. The problem is, those rough deadlines came and went and we’ve still heard nothing. Clearly they either stopped working on them, or they are still in development. Which is it? They haven’t said anything. This leaves players disgruntled, but if they wanted to solve that disgruntlement, the solution is not to never have told us in the first place, it’s that when things change, when reasons pop up that they can’t do something, TELL US. Explain to use why they either had to give up entirely, or why it’s taking longer than they planned. If they are still working on it, keep setting rough timelines and explain why they aren’t met. Keep us in the loop and there’s no problem, the only thing that’s a problem is radio silence.

And yes, of course there will be people that will get upset if a feature is cut even after it’s been fully explained, but there’s nothing to be done about that, don’t let those people ruin things for everyone else, including yourselves. Rip the bandaid off when you have to and let us know what’s going on.

That’s not even transparency – it’s hype generating and PR talk. Throwing some exciting statements isn’t exactly fair if there’s no follow-up.
IF they had thrown those statements and then kept us updated – I would have seen it as transparency.
As it stands now I see it as a bait and switch : "stick with the game – more exciting stuff is coming by the end of 2013 " and then nothing comes.

It’s technically bait and switch.

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?

Tell us about the fractal reset and the fractal leaderboard.
Also, please explain to me how I “exploited” to reach 50+ pre-patch – which exploit warranted the loss of over 20 levels.
Lemme guess, silence.

That’s not even transparency – it’s hype generating and PR talk. Throwing some exciting statements isn’t exactly fair if there’s no follow-up.
IF they had thrown those statements and then kept us updated – I would have seen it as transparency.
As it stands now I see it as a bait and switch : "stick with the game – more exciting stuff is coming by the end of 2013 " and then nothing comes.

It’s technically bait and switch.

That’s certainly a valid way of looking at it, but bait and switch implies that it’s deliberate. I am not assuming that they intended to mislead us. But it’s basically like going to a restaurant, and ordering a steak, and they say “ok, we’ll have it right to you in fifteen minutes,” and then they realize they have no steaks on hand, so they fiddle around in the kitchen without saying a word, and then an hour later they give you a plate full of shrimp, which you’re allergic to, when they could have saved all that time and effort by just letting you know they were out of steak and asking what you’d like instead.

Ohoni.6057:

That’s not even transparency – it’s hype generating and PR talk. Throwing some exciting statements isn’t exactly fair if there’s no follow-up.
IF they had thrown those statements and then kept us updated – I would have seen it as transparency.
As it stands now I see it as a bait and switch : "stick with the game – more exciting stuff is coming by the end of 2013 " and then nothing comes.

It’s technically bait and switch.

That’s certainly a valid way of looking at it, but bait and switch implies that it’s deliberate. I am not assuming that they intended to mislead us. But it’s basically like going to a restaurant, and ordering a steak, and they say “ok, we’ll have it right to you in fifteen minutes,” and then they realize they have no steaks on hand, so they riddle around in the kitchen without saying a word, and then an hour later they give you a lat full of shrimp, which you’re allergic to, when they could have saved all that time and effort by just letting you know they were out of steak and asking what you’d like instead.

Bait and switch has a very specific legal definition. What you’re talking about here is more like false advertising, which is a whole different ball game.

Having been in the electronics industry for a very long time, I can tell you this is NOT bait and switch.

I dont even think thats false advertising. Intent would be required no? Not sure but there was no false intent. They thought they had a steak. Infact unless money was exchanged I dont think anything could be done other than bad publicity for said shop.

Also I am fine with the amount of communication that is being done by arenanet. They never lost my trust and I am a relatively happy customer.

Gaile Gray.6029:

nightwulf.1986:

On the subject of telling people what’s not being worked on: Super Adventure Box. There goes the hope of telling people that something isn’t being worked on in an exploding cloud of pixellated glory.

But you know we have said, officially, that SAB will return in the future, right? I don’t know that everyone understood that, but yes, it’ll be back. I honestly and truly don’t know when — and even more honestly, I don’t know if the return has been scheduled. However, I heard the “it will be back” from Colin, and I pretty much rely on that guy for knowing what’s what.

I don’t see enough other people giving you props for this one, Gaile, and I’m going to do that now. Seriously, when I saw you took the time to go and just get a definitive answer on this, it made me happy, because this is the kind of thing that I was hoping to see from an increased forum presence. Just simple answers to questions that are vague enough to not overshare or overpromise. I genuinely don’t care that some people don’t consider this enough, as long as the answers are at least somewhat specific and not just “well, we totally plan to do that within 3 years time”.

That being said (and including headers to make this easier to read)…

We need a roadmap
I have to agree that the lack of a roadmap is hard to adjust to. There’s been a long period with a lack of info or updates and it’s been hard to really feel motivated to keep going. If I didn’t have some super good guildmates to keep things feeling fresh, I don’t think I’d have kept playing.

Beyond that, knowing what Guild Wars will probably have by next year is super cool. A lot of the stuff in Colin’s older roadmap was nice, the main problem was just putting a date on it and overcommitting. If we had that same exact info and instead of “by the end of 2013” it said “within the next year or so and, to be clear, possibly subject to change”, then I don’t think we’d have any problems whatsoever. Colin is a super inspirational guy, let him talk to us again.

We need more than just title/image when living story updates are coming months later
I understand you guys want to keep some surprise in the mix, but there’s definitely a middle ground between undersharing and oversharing, and we are not in the sweet spot there yet. An example of how to slightly build upon that picture, for instance. What kind of land are we going to encounter, is it jungle? More desert? Are there going to be some new enemies to face there? Is there a new world boss? Within the next several updates, will we find a new zone? Will there be more open world events integrated with the living story?

Even just stating open questions that we should be paying attention to in the next few chapters is useful! If you said we should be asking “What happened to Rytlock?” right now, that would be telling us that we’ll get more about that story thread without actually revealing any information. We need nuggets. Tiny little nuggets to get imagination spinning. And since we can’t have more than just the nuggets, we need several of them.

DonQuack.9025:

I dont even think thats false advertising. Intent would be required no? Not sure but there was no false intent. They thought they had a steak. Infact unless money was exchanged I dont think anything could be done other than bad publicity for said shop.

Also I am fine with the amount of communication that is being done by arenanet. They never lost my trust and I am a relatively happy customer.

I’m not saying any court would find them guilty of false advertising, but the complaint, as stated, is that complaint. It’s a flawed complaint for a number of reasons.

Bait and switch, however, is a completely different kettle of fish, involved advertising one model of a product, not having that in stock, and upselling to something you do have in stock. The bait is getting people to come into your store based on an advertised price for a piece of merchandise and then trying to sell them a completely different product.

It’s a different crime than selling the same product you advertised with different features.

Gaile I understand as a veteran player of many an MMO over the years how it can degenerate into something unwanted however, in all of the MMOs I’ve ever played, transparency is absolutely a must, and in all of the MMOs I’ve ever played, GW2 has had the least amount of transparency.

I’m about to start STO’s Delta Rising for example. The expansion is free but they are selling ship upgrade packs. The reason I bought the pack isn’t because I needed it, it wasn’t because it was such a short time period for purchase and it wasn’t because I was forced into purchasing it by the design team, it was because of their transparency.

They did live streams for how these ships behaved in PVE. They posted weekly posts on what they were working on showing images, movies etc. They have a dev news blog that keeps people up to date, and their live streams give us answers to commonly asked questions and concerns.

That’s what should be happening here in GW2. This has literally been the only MMO in which transparency and a time table have been abscent. Every time any other title has come out with updates or new expansion level work, not only are they transparent about it, but they also have a clear time table. Part of the frustration is we’re still not hearing about things that were promised 8 months ago like the Engineer hobosacks or the Rewards Revamp, even now we’re not hearing about how those should be the next items to focus on especially since they have gone by the wayside and there isn’t a clear deadline. So people will start asking questions like, “is this game going somewhere? Why haven’t they done anything about things they already said were coming? What are they doing?”

Vayne.8563:

Ohoni.6057:

That’s not even transparency – it’s hype generating and PR talk. Throwing some exciting statements isn’t exactly fair if there’s no follow-up.
IF they had thrown those statements and then kept us updated – I would have seen it as transparency.
As it stands now I see it as a bait and switch : "stick with the game – more exciting stuff is coming by the end of 2013 " and then nothing comes.

It’s technically bait and switch.

That’s certainly a valid way of looking at it, but bait and switch implies that it’s deliberate. I am not assuming that they intended to mislead us. But it’s basically like going to a restaurant, and ordering a steak, and they say “ok, we’ll have it right to you in fifteen minutes,” and then they realize they have no steaks on hand, so they riddle around in the kitchen without saying a word, and then an hour later they give you a lat full of shrimp, which you’re allergic to, when they could have saved all that time and effort by just letting you know they were out of steak and asking what you’d like instead.

Bait and switch has a very specific legal definition. What you’re talking about here is more like false advertising, which is a whole different ball game.

Having been in the electronics industry for a very long time, I can tell you this is NOT bait and switch.

Alright – that’s fine.
It might not be bait and switch – but whatever it was is wasn’t really decent on their part to do.

The “we’re resetting your levels because of instability and the leaderboards” was a harsh but fair choice. New leaderboards and new gaming conditions would maybe warrant the reset as necessary.

The problem is – like they admitted themselves later – that they didn’t even know what criteria should be used for the leader boards to begin with. They had no idea how they were going to implement these leader boards but they still went on with the reset anyway.

I would have understood if they’d have some plan to do this – but to take away player’s work and then fall short to deliver on your end is simply frustrating and terrible.

That’s why trust has been corroded.

DonQuack.9025:

I dont even think thats false advertising. Intent would be required no? Not sure but there was no false intent. They thought they had a steak. Infact unless money was exchanged I dont think anything could be done other than bad publicity for said shop.

Also I am fine with the amount of communication that is being done by arenanet. They never lost my trust and I am a relatively happy customer.

They didn’t think they had a steak. They admitted themselves later that they had no idea how to make said steak.

tigirius.9014:

Gaile I understand as a veteran player of many an MMO over the years how it can degenerate into something unwanted however, in all of the MMOs I’ve ever played, transparency is absolutely a must, and in all of the MMOs I’ve ever played, GW2 has had the least amount of transparency.

I’m about to start STO’s Delta Rising for example. The expansion is free but they are selling ship upgrade packs. The reason I bought the pack isn’t because I needed it, it wasn’t because it was such a short time period for purchase and it wasn’t because I was forced into purchasing it by the design team, it was because of their transparency.

They did live streams for how these ships behaved in PVE. They posted weekly posts on what they were working on showing images, movies etc. They have a dev news blog that keeps people up to date, and their live streams give us answers to commonly asked questions and concerns.

That’s what should be happening here in GW2. This has literally been the only MMO in which transparency and a time table have been abscent. Every time any other title has come out with updates or new expansion level work, not only are they transparent about it, but they also have a clear time table. Part of the frustration is we’re still not hearing about things that were promised 8 months ago like the Engineer hobosacks or the Rewards Revamp, even now we’re not hearing about how those should be the next items to focus on especially since they have gone by the wayside and there isn’t a clear deadline. So people will start asking questions like, “is this game going somewhere? Why haven’t they done anything about things they already said were coming? What are they doing?”

Clearly wasnt around at the launch of STO. or season 1, 2, 3,

DonQuack.9025:

tigirius.9014:

I’m about to start STO’s Delta Rising for example. The expansion is free but they are selling ship upgrade packs. The reason I bought the pack isn’t because I needed it, it wasn’t because it was such a short time period for purchase and it wasn’t because I was forced into purchasing it by the design team, it was because of their transparency.

Clearly wasnt around at the launch of STO. or season 1, 2, 3,

Which only goes to demonstrate that the tide will turn inexorably in the direction of transparency, the only question is how many people will bleed off the population before Anet catches on. This is the worst possible policy to have when trying to get new players and it makes me sad. You create this new player experience designed to hold onto new people, and they will leave soon after they hit 80 because they ask what is coming next and everyone in the game says they have no idea what is coming past the next two months. That fact combined with the fact that we are getting considerably LESS content than we did last year sure makes it seem like the game is dying. That’s SO BAD, because I’m almost certain it’s not true, and that’s why we keep trying to raise flags. It has only a little to do with us wanting to know more, it is much more us saying, “hey, some guildmates are losing interest, help us know what to say to them to keep them playing while we wait”.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Some of you pointed to the Season 2 image and said it wasn’t enough to excite you about the season. Some said we should use “teasers.” But isn’t that image precisely that? A teaser?

Ok, let’s talk about this on a personal level. Share your thoughts or desires, not what you gauge to be the thoughts or wishes of the whole community.

I’ll start:

I love books. But I never read the slipcover or the back of the book. Why? Because usually it says too bloomin’ much! I don’t want to read something like, “Ingrid takes a vacation in Crete and meets a mysterious stranger who isn’t all he seems to be, which she discovers when checking the lining of his suitcase and finding four passports in four different names all containing (insert imagined gasp here) her new lover’s photograph! What will Ingrid do? What will she do?”

Well, I’d have to read 100 pages to catch up with the whole “phony passport” thing, but during those 100 pages, I’m thinking, “So when is she finding out that Pierre is a scoundrel?” And everything is colored by what I know, and the whole story-telling experience is diminished.

Oh, and I don’t even want to go into the whole “I saw a trailer at a movie, and every good joke and/or pivotal scene in the movie was telegraphed in the trailer.” That’s not good teaser-ing — that’s giving away the store!

A teaser has to be carefully devised — for a book, a movie, a game. I find the portal and the date to be enticing. Others here do as well. It’s ok — your mileage may vary. But I don’t think we (as devs) want to go the way of TMI for upcoming content because that takes away the joy of discovery and the sense of wonder that everyone will experience as they play the new episode.

Again, just a personal opinion, but as you can see, something I have thought about quite a bit!

Taking your book analogy, I ran bookstores for the better part of 15 years. The behaviour you describe simply isn’t common nature amongst the general populace. Blurbs are extremely important passive sales techniques (and actually most rarely spoil anything or even relate to what actually the story tends to be about anyway..). Of course TMI is a careful balance, but I would be very surprised if what was put up on the front page could ever be described as TMI. Even saying exactly where we would be going would still be just about undercutting it, whilst still generating enough info to garner excitement amongst the players and also amongst the wider community of players who are on hiatus right now.

For example; in TSW, I know FC are bringing two more areas of Tokyo to the game. That’s common knowledge to the playerbase. They know what the 2 zones are. We don’t know anything about playable content (probably a massive grindfest but hey ho), but we know the direction. Same with Lotro – in Spring they stated a roadmap of where players would be headed over the next year. Exact details left to the imagination, but we had a map.

In GW2…I haven’t got a clue. I could make an educated guess…but that is it. Personally, I’m with you, I don’t want spoilers. But, I want something to get excited about. I’m a loyal player who is likely to stick with the game for life, but I have nothing to look forward to. Which is a little saddening to me really.

You have an amazing game, with an amazing future. Shout about it!!