Guild Wars 2

I had heard some things about the “State of the Game” video posted on March 14th, and I just saw it for myself.

And let me just say, wow. How disappointing. For people who haven’t seen:

I don’t expect the devs to be elite communicators, but watching this discussion was painful. The amount of issues that didn’t get addressed was painful. The way the information was vocalized was really painful.

On top of it all, this was a balance discussion (focused on sPvP) with two experienced guests (Nero and Xeph). Why was it necessary to give a description of every profession before discussing them?

I’m just a bit shocked, to be honest. Watching this makes me very nervous looking into the future.

One day they will write poems about Karl the Hero.

i think they already exist. something about karl the great i think

They should just have a very concrete list of the issues with the classes and talk them out. And find solutions together if necessary.
And Arenanet’s policy is still lackluster. But they probably succeed in bringing in the features…can we get some compensation for the hours of frustration though ?

Yea the way they answer makes them seem pretty clueless no wonder the games like this

Guys, I hate to do it, but I have to side with the Devs on this one.

Karl seems to be a popular punching bag around here, but before you beat the dead horse any more try to understand that it is a managment decision not to give the PvP devs the resources they need and that the few brave (albeit socially awkward) guys that they put out there to give us some answers should not be ridiculed for making the effort.

You know why Devs don’t want to communicate with the player base? It is because some people think it is appropriate to criticize them for everything in the game that isn’t perfect, and God forbid they poke their head up for a moment to try and answer the deafening roar of questions, because if they do, then some donkey pit (use thesaurus on previous two words if you don’e get it) will try to take cheap shots and make a fool of them.

What did I get from the SotG? The PvP devs don’t have the resources they need, and management isn’t even smart enough to send a Gaile Gray PR type to help them out in a serious discussion with the community.

Don’t shoot the messenger. It is counter productive.

Could prep better.
Karl doesn’t seem a master of winging-it, so just have some more things written down before hand. It would probably only take 2-3 minutes, so it’s easier to fall back on. Looks like they’re reading a list of topics/change-log, instead of having some statements, so then they have to freestyle the topic, but that’s Sharps strength?
Statements.
Ele: We want to implement things on other professions to handle them better instead of nerfing them. Making headway on getting the Focus on the playing field.
Thief: Mug nerfed to put less emphasis on instantaneous damage. Improving X for blah, blah, blah.
Warrior: We nerfed Hammer because too many people are using it now as well as Axe for the same reason. Stomp now insta kills minimized Engineers and the smoke cloud blows away Mist form killing eles instantly, wanted Warrior to have counter play.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Guys, I hate to do it, but I have to side with the Devs on this one.

Karl seems to be a popular punching bag around here, but before you beat the dead horse any more try to understand that it is a managment decision not to give the PvP devs the resources they need and that the few brave (albeit socially awkward) guys that they put out there to give us some answers should not be ridiculed for making the effort.

You know why Devs don’t want to communicate with the player base? It is because some people think it is appropriate to criticize them for everything in the game that isn’t perfect, and God forbid they poke their head up for a moment to try and answer the deafening roar of questions, because if they do, then some donkey pit (use thesaurus on previous two words if you don’e get it) will try to take cheap shots and make a fool of them.

What did I get from the SotG? The PvP devs don’t have the resources they need, and management isn’t even smart enough to send a Gaile Gray PR type to help them out in a serious discussion with the community.

Don’t shoot the messenger. It is counter productive.

You’re telling me a professional in a career path can’t formulate sentences about the very game they design and balance? And keeps introducing professions as if viewers were infantile?

Sorry, no dice. There was no messenger in this video – that’s one of the problems. But like I said, all the grief I’m giving isn’t because the middle-school equivalent presentation. It’s also about many short answers with no serious insight and cooperative ideas getting thrown around.

Also: I don’t even play sPvP.

I loved whenever the devs said something completely irrelevant to pvp or counter productive to balance, and you see Xeph’s eyes blow up like balloons

George Steel.1804:

You’re telling me a professional in a career path can’t formulate sentences about the very game they design and balance?

Game design and Communication are two distinct career paths. So yes, it’s perfectly possible that a game designer might have trouble at communicating during a livestream at first. You’ve never had to talk to your class at school? For some, it can be done naturally; for others, it’s surprisingly hard at first to generate a natural speech flow.

I’m even surprised that this isn’t common knowledge in the contemporary world, especially in the internet, which is mostly driven by these kind of people. :P

DiogoSilva.7089:

Game design and Communication are two distinct career paths. So yes, it’s perfectly possible that a game designer might have trouble at communicating during a livestream at first.

It’s
his
job.
!!!

What happens during company meetings? I’m sure he has some experience presenting ideas. Are there no meetings for pvp?

Let’s skip straight to the worst case scenario; no devs have any grasp of public communication and can’t anticipate even the most basic question that will be asked (most of the questions were probably in Xeph’s thread). Maybe they should’ve hired a speech coach / PR person for this occasion. Or actors. Honestly, they were representing anet and it’s their job to positively represent the company. Or maybe this is all just a ruse, and the current devteam is a bunch of actors while they wait to receive an enormous PR spike while unleashing a ton of content at once and revealing the real devteam.

This is assuming that we’re all just ganging up on Karl and ignoring Jon’s beat poetry.