Guild Wars 2

What (if anything) is being done to promote better “skilled gameplay”?

Do you feel that the frequency of the PvP balance changes has been good, ok, or too long?

PvP balance

Subjective to ones play style

Change it frequently.

manveruppd.7601:

1. Do you believe that ANet management are giving the PvP team sufficient resources to enable them to develop the kind of new features that would keep the playerbase engaged and playing within a reasonable time scale?

2. Do you believe that ANet’s patch certification and deployment procedures allow for a sufficiently rapid and regular stream of patches to keep the game bug-free and the pvp environment balanced and fun?

Why?
So if the answer is ‘they are dragging us down’.. well… what?

They’re part of a company… you can’t fire your boss and you can’t pick up a company product and walk to another and say “hey will you treat us better, oh and do not worry about potential lawsuits, NCSoft is cool, they care more about happy people than money”…

???

Did you enjoy the All Is Vain thread?
And now a serious question (but pls answer the first one too xD)
How much time do you guys spend with:
- reading the forums
- trying new stuff out
- balancing
- etc (what you do each day)
pls some numbers or %

Dear Allie, nice to meet you. I have a few questions for you:

- What is your job exactly at arenanet
- How many soloQ/teamQ games have you played
- What do you feel has been your biggest accomplishment to improve the experience of Guild Wars 2
- Who at arenanet is your boss and how was his feedback of your work the past year
- Why did you want to work for arenanet on Guild Wars 2 and why did they chose you, what special skills do you have that other people who applied for the job didn’t

Thank you in advance
~ James

Dwaynas Avatar.1562:

Did you enjoy the All Is Vain thread?

To expand on that one, why did you close the thread instead of stickying it?

How can GW1 PvP [9 years after its release] be still more competitive than GW2 one?

How come GW1 had several types of PvP to please everyone, from the competitive playerbase (ha, gvg, hb, ta) to the more casuals (ab, ra..) while we have a terrible mix of broken RA+AB as only PvP in gw2?

In before infraction: im not QQ’ing, im wondering

Your Game My Rules.5324:

How can GW1 PvP [9 years after its release] be still more competitive than GW2 one?

How come GW1 had several types of PvP to please everyone, from the competitive playerbase (ha, gvg, hb, ta) to the more casuals (ab, ra..) while we have a terrible mix of broken RA+AB as only PvP in gw2?

In before infraction: im not QQ’ing, im wondering

You explained it on your own lol, gw1 had 9 years of balancing, gw2 only close to 2 years now with less updates than gw1 (pvp updates).

Nice initiative Allie, I think its good that you open yourself up so that the community might better know their representative.

A couple of questions from me:

• A lot of players do not understand your role in the community correctly. Could you explain your role as a community manager to these people so they might get a better understanding of how to communicate with you?

• A follow up to the previous question: As community manager could you explain how much/little direct influence you have on the balance in the game?

• Do you as a community manager directly involve high profile forum threads (decap engie, thief p/w, etc.) in your meetings with the balance team? If so could you give us an example?

PS.
To the people posting here: Keep the questions above infancy level please.

Allie Murdock.8152:

We expect the feature build to sufficiently shake up the current meta. There will be lots… of fresh… stuff…

Monthly basis is not 100% feasible right now like it was before. We tried to bring you guys consistent updates, but as you noticed not all of them really shook up the meta. The upcoming build will do a better job at that for you. Hopefully in a good way.

Hello, Allie.

The monthly balance updates weren’t always enough to shake the meta, because the designer’s “shaving” balance philosophy is, by its very nature, a slow, safe, “let’s push it a bit further until it works” process. That means that, it sometimes took several attempts until it started to bring real consequences to the meta.

And this is not exactly a bad thing when balancing patches are frequent enough. Small shaving balance passes every two weeks or every month, and one or two months later, the changes started to become very apparent.

For that reason, the longer the patches take out to come to us, the more underwhelming that shaving philosophy feels to us players. An 8% nerf to Healing Signet would be nice if it came quickly, like, say, one month after the community deemed it to be too strong. Would (will) that nerf be enough? Probably not, but then Anet could shave it a bit further the following month, and a bit further the month after that, until it is placed at an “acceptable state”. Monthly balance shaves gives to anet and to the community the opportunity to analyze every small change frequently enough, and adapt to it. But when a patch can take 4-5+ months to come, that 8% nerf might come at the risk of being a slap to the face of every competitive player, especially if they must wait 4-5 more months for the next shaving.

I personally feel that there should exist two different types of balance patches. The shaving passes, that would come out monthly and slightly tone down the meta, and the big balancing patches, that would bring a lot of buffs, re-designs, new skills or traits, etc, but take several months to come. Those two types of patches should co-exist together. This game’s pvp would be at a much better state now, if the previewed shaving changes were already in-game.

It would be interesting if this issue could be discussed in RU. Like, what does Anet thinks of this situation, and how are they approaching it now.

Absinth.6917:

Thank you for the answer. I truly appreciate it Allie. Monthly tweaks would shake up the meta. As I say, for better or worse, monthly changes keeps things fresh. I’d rather have new challenges than 6 months of stagnation. Hopefully many would agree with this assessment.

Heck even if it was every 3 months and we could look forward to definite changes that would be a great change.

btw….Boxers or briefs?

Having changes every 3 months is fine. Having changes every 3 months which include tiny and minor changes is not fine when so many builds are skill-less and yet exceptionally strong. This patch will be no different. 8% nerf to healing signet and a minor pin down nerf? Really what is that going to change. There is no reason to be hopeful for the upcoming balance changes as the changes announced are utterly insignificant after such a long drought without any updates.

And for anyone new to pvp here is how anet work. Their balance preview (months before release) is always IDENTICAL to their balance changes. So this balance patch will be tiny except for the rune and sigil changes. SO expect the same thief evasion, the same thief damage, the same spirit ranger 11111, the same decap engis, and the same warriors with epic sustain and massive damage.

Really. That is all there is to it. Don’t get excited for a balance patch because we have been told already what is in it and it is hopeless.

Do you feel that communication has one up or down since Grouch was removed from his role and promoted to testing the China/Korea release?

Lordrosicky.5813:

Absinth.6917:

Thank you for the answer. I truly appreciate it Allie. Monthly tweaks would shake up the meta. As I say, for better or worse, monthly changes keeps things fresh. I’d rather have new challenges than 6 months of stagnation. Hopefully many would agree with this assessment.

Heck even if it was every 3 months and we could look forward to definite changes that would be a great change.

btw….Boxers or briefs?

Having changes every 3 months is fine. Having changes every 3 months which include tiny and minor changes is not fine when so many builds are skill-less and yet exceptionally strong. This patch will be no different. 8% nerf to healing signet and a minor pin down nerf? Really what is that going to change. There is no reason to be hopeful for the upcoming balance changes as the changes announced are utterly insignificant after such a long drought without any updates.

I’d love to see ANet take a more “dynamic” (to use one of their favorite buzzwords) approach to their game.

The shaving balance philosophy is stale and simply not interesting; people will just stick with the same builds until they drop out of favor six months to a year down the road. I personally would like to see things get shaken up every two months or so at the latest, but that might just be me.

Allie Murdock.8152:

We expect the feature build to sufficiently shake up the current meta. There will be lots… of fresh… stuff…

Monthly basis is not 100% feasible right now like it was before. We tried to bring you guys consistent updates, but as you noticed not all of them really shook up the meta. The upcoming build will do a better job at that for you. Hopefully in a good way.

OK here are some questions:

What is the ‘meta’ today, as defined by ArenaNet? I know what it is based upon watching and playing the game, but I want to know what ANet’s position is on that.

If you can’t get into details, can you list what roles you expect to be ‘shaken up’ by the meta?

Bunker?
Side Bunker?
Roamer?
Group DPS/Support?

Also, if we can’t even expect a monthly update, then how about you guys push all the knobs to adjust spell coefficients and durations into some kind of user-defined format via custom arenas, and just let the user community balance the game for you? That would free up your Balance Team to go do other things.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Absinth.6917:

I posted the essence of this on another thread but I’ll get right to the point.

When will ,you, the Anet pvp dev’s grow some dang balls? (yourself excluded Allie)

By this I mean when will you shake up the current “meta”?

I’m not talking about slight changes to observable metrics. I speak of a complete overhaul. Give us something fresh! Obviously new game modes are out the window or at the very least on the distant horizon. IE. Mars….

So my true question would be this:

Can you effectively disrupt any current “meta” on a monthly basis?

If you dared to do such a thing you would cure GW2 of the current stagnation that we are all experiencing barring new game modes.

For better or worse if you could shake up the “meta” on a monthly basis; encouraging me to play unfamiliar classes or unused trait lines (builds) to be optimally effective then you have my attention. Perhaps you might come close to that gamer utopia that we call “balance”.

Or do we as pvp’rs not garner such consideration from Anet?

edit – oh wait this is a meet and greet BS session. I apologize. So my question would be this Allie….

Boxers or briefs?

We expect the feature build to sufficiently shake up the current meta. There will be lots… of fresh… stuff…

Monthly basis is not 100% feasible right now like it was before. We tried to bring you guys consistent updates, but as you noticed not all of them really shook up the meta. The upcoming build will do a better job at that for you. Hopefully in a good way.

Why is it not feasible right now? Is it because we are all paying for 90% of your team to work on releasing the game in China?

In the balance preview the following changes were listed for thief (after 8 months of eliminating ele and mesmer from the meta on its own):

Thief:
Much like the engineer, we wanted to take this opportunity to tone-down excessive poison stacking through poison fields.
Choking Gas: Reduced the poison per pulse from 5 seconds to 3 seconds.

Do you think one change which has no effect whatsoever is sufficient after 5 months of no changes to the most broken class.

Rickster.8752:

In the balance preview the following changes were listed for thief (after 8 months of eliminating ele and mesmer from the meta on its own):

Thief:
Much like the engineer, we wanted to take this opportunity to tone-down excessive poison stacking through poison fields.
Choking Gas: Reduced the poison per pulse from 5 seconds to 3 seconds.

Do you think one change which has no effect whatsoever is sufficient after 5 months of no changes to the most broken class.

They also said that they have “amazing changes” in store for Ranger and Thief, but obviously we’ve heard nothing since then.

Do you truly feel that your current schedule of balance releases is justifiable when apex predators have been extant for nearly 9 months, and that every delay extends a stale meta?

• Keep in mind that nearly every single Apex predator build was created by the Dhuumfire/Aetherblade “balance overhaul” patch – Spirit Rangers, MM Necros, Hambow/Triple Stance warriors with Healing Signet, Decap Engi, S/X Fresh Air instant untelegraphed burst Ele, Clone Death Mesmer, Pistolwhip Thief. These are all builds that minimise counterplay, with the result of low skill floor, low risk, high reward in terms of Damage vs Survivability ratios.

• Do you truly feel that these apex predators should persist, pushing others out of competitive viability for so long?

• Your subsequent balance patches have done little to shift these builds. Does this not mean that your changes have been ineffectual at best, reflecting a lack of root cause analysis?

Why does Arenanet insist upon bundling balance “shaves” like Healing Signet 8% or Spirit of Nature bugfix (a bugfix of all things!) into Feature builds when these “features” are clearly being exploited?

• How is it that your rate of turnover for profession-affecting balance changes and bug fixes can be so minimal compared to the sheer number and efficiency of PVE only bugfixes and changes? It would seem that content designers are far outperforming their erstwhile colleages in balance and profession QA.

I don’t understand… how many times do you need to have it answered?

1. Balance changes – What are they? When are they? Somehow it was totally cool to talk about proposed balance changes 2 months ago, but now things are all lock and key. Nothing at all to even theorycraft about or get excited about… Yes this is working really well.

2. Rune and sigil changes – What are they? When are they? Again, it was okay to talk about ONE rune change and the mechanics changes for sigils, but nothing since January? You really can’t release data on a few of the new propsed rune changes with a could change hashtag?

3. What about WvW season two? Devon made it clear there would be no balance changes during the WvW season to prevent disrupting the match. Doesn’t that mean your balance changes are occuring at a minimum sometime in May?

4. Does it really take 4 months between balance patches? If incremental changes were not providing a sufficient shift to the meta, maybe you should have targetted specific skills and traits that were a problem and reduced them… OH… Like the all of the ones you mentioned in January…. that haven’t been changed….

I got it…. another CDI should be opened up and we should ask the question… Kittens or Unicorns? Discuss

EDIT: I see now… this was “Dear Allie” questions…. not actual game information that might matter to anyone… Nevermind the post.

Why would anyone care about you? I dont meant that to sound harsh, but why would anyone care about your life on here. I would assume your personal life is your private life like anyone else on here. So no personal questions, no questions about anything coming out, no questions about the awful state of PVP because that will be meet with the same old tired excuses “soon” “great stuff in the future” etc etc.

The PVP side of this game is dead, it really is. Sure more people play it, but thats just PVE players coming in for the rewards, PVP is a mini game. Its a new daily and thats about it.

Used to be groups always in the mists trying to form teams and doing tournis, lots of long term teams as well. Now its just a handful and a few randoms getting together.

No one really cares and why would they, the leaderboard has never really worked well, and the spectator mode has you watching hotjoin which is always been a bastion of skill…..

This company has done nothing since the games release to address the underwhelming PVP aspect. Oh sorry, those useless leaderboards and skyhammer, well done, you guys really know how to utterly get it wrong on a near biblical scale.

Honestly, I expect a level of tardy wallet hunting from EA and its like, but this game goes beyond that.

Here is a question for you to answer if you really want to act like a human being, did ANet buy this engine or have someone else design and build it because you seem to have zero clue what you are doing. Each patch and every single failure is a litany of proof that you have zero worth anymore.

Oh and your PR is perhaps the worst. If all you are going to do is parrot the company line of “soon” “in the future it will be great”, just get a cleaner to pop it on the forums once a day between taking the bins out, its pointless wasting a persons time having this as an actual job.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Monthly basis is not 100% feasible right now like it was before.

Why is it not 100% feasible? Is it 80% feasible? Because I’d take a monthly update 80% of the time. Is it 50% feasible? Because I’d take 6 pvp updates a year. Right now it’s looking more like it’s 20% feasible, which is not acceptable.

League of Legends can push out a balance update every 2 weeks, and they aren’t even a self-titled AAA MMO. GW2 is a self-proclaimed AAA MMO – why shouldn’t the community expect regular updates to PvP?

Define “soon” in a measurable way that we can grasp (ex: using weeks,months or years), thanks

Allie Murdock.8152:

Monthly basis is not 100% feasible right now like it was before.

PvE had (useless) monthly updates for 1 year

Why was pvp turned into a minigame?

Why were the resources used towards creating other mini-games not used towards improving the spvp minigame?

Why the obsession with conquest and only conquest?

Why is the feature build such a big secret?

wooooo weeeee dis ere lot lookin fer BLOOD

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Fashion-achieves-with-glory/first#post3731967

If we buy cultural armor with glory+gold now, will it ever eventually count for the fashion achieves?
If I can use glory to cover half the gold price and don’t simply becuase no one knows any better I’m gonna be a little kittened.

I would like to know more about the original intent and design of the Conquest game-type during the actual development of GW2.

What did the devs during GW2’s development envision conquest to be played like, in terms of both strategy and builds used?

Additionally, what do those same devs think of how conquest is played atm? Is it what they imagined it would be like?

What are they disappointed about, and what do they think went well?

I’d also like to ask about what sort of builds were used/played/tested by devs during the development of GW2, especially near launch? What was the internal “meta,” so to speak? How does it differ from what is played currently?

Are there any major meta builds that never even crossed the dev’s minds? Are there any builds in GW2 that were designed specifically to “become meta?”

1) What work experience do you have that makes you uniquely qualified to be a “community manager”?
2)Do you believe that your announcements and posts regarding the Glory Changes upcoming were effectively communicated? If yes, why do you believe there was so much confusion regarding this important change amongst some players? (specifically regarding the nature of the “maintenance patch” vs the “feature patch”? )
3) What sort of things have you done to help grow the PVP community and do you consider yourself partially responsible for the current state that it is in?
4) What do you feel is the current state of the pvp community? Is the glass half full or half empty?

I realize that my questions are candid but I genuinely would be curious to hear your answers to any of them. Either way, I shall be watching RU intently, thanks for the announcement Allie and for putting yourself out there for the community.

Can you please show us the armor you were issued to survive the forum?

Romek.4201:

What class you play in TESO?

best question in this thread so far

Allie Murdock.8152:

AlbertoUlkesh.4517:

Can you please show us the armor you were issued to survive the forum?

This made me chuckle.

There is no armor, but knowing there are people who understand makes it a little better!

You never got your armor?

I got a question.

What is the purpose of Ready ups?

garethh.3518:

Why?
So if the answer is ‘they are dragging us down’.. well… what?

They’re part of a company… you can’t fire your boss and you can’t pick up a company product and walk to another and say “hey will you treat us better, oh and do not worry about potential lawsuits, NCSoft is cool, they care more about happy people than money”…

???

I don’t really want an answer, and even if I did I’m sure he’s smart enough not to slag off his employer to his customers. I just hope that they’ll confront the question and talk about it internally.

Absinth.6917:

Sir – although your questions are quite valid I, for one, would regrettably look to your sig for the answer.

Thanks for that, I lol’ed!

Try to visit often Grouch

Josh Davis.6015:

Volrath.1473:

I got a question.

What is the purpose of Ready ups?

Good question. I’ll take this one! Before I was hired at ArenaNet I ran show called “Guild Wars 2 Guru’s State of the Game”. Aside from the forums, it was one of the main bridges we had with the developers behind PvP and balance. Unfortunately for the show, last summer I was hired on at ArenaNet and had to shut it down.

I know we can’t always talk about extensively about what’s in development, but ideally we’d like for Ready Up to fill that gap, even if we’re just goofing around on stream a bit, playing some casual games. Ready Up happens twice as often as State of the Game did, and we won’t always have things to preview. That said, when we are finally ready to show something off, Ready Up is going to be the place you’re going to check it out.

The topics for each show are posted prior to each episode – allowing you to choose if the show is worth your time or not. They’re not mandatory. Even if we’re not talking about balance or features, etc, I’d still love to have everyone come hang out for an hour every two weeks. If you’re not interested in watching scrims, or whatever else we happen to be doing, then we’ll see you at the patch previews.

Hope that helps.

Yeah it does Josh.
Thanks for taking the time to replay. I watched all Guru’s SOTG and when the ready up series started I hoped that it would be similar to the SOTG, and apparently that is actually the intention but tbh i prefer the SOTG since you would invite players to interact with the devs and ask questions and sow their point if view on specific issues that I’m sure most of us players would agree with.

This new RU is scripted, players have no interaction with it whatsoever… Sure we can ask questions in the forum but they are handpicked…

SOTG was much more genuine and I remember devs making notes and acknowledging our concerns and even identifying bugs in that show. Don’t get me wrong RU is a decent show but it feels very cold and distant from the players imo.

Edit: I play since beta and followed every single SOTG live although I’m in EU

Josh Davis.6015:

Edit: If you have suggestions for segments or topics for the show, outside of “tell us all the things” feel free to post them. I don’t spend as much time working on the show as I did when I was on the PvP team, but I’m all about improving where we can, and I know Allie feels the same way.

i love the art and Music of guild wars 2.
I would be interested to see the Artist of all the loading Screens, the back grounds of personal Story and so one.
and i think about Music was already a stream? the Music of scarlet or Marionette battle and the Music of Tower of the mad king are really cool!

Allie Murdock.8152:

Absinth.6917:

I posted the essence of this on another thread but I’ll get right to the point.

When will ,you, the Anet pvp dev’s grow some dang balls? (yourself excluded Allie)

By this I mean when will you shake up the current “meta”?

I’m not talking about slight changes to observable metrics. I speak of a complete overhaul. Give us something fresh! Obviously new game modes are out the window or at the very least on the distant horizon. IE. Mars….

So my true question would be this:

Can you effectively disrupt any current “meta” on a monthly basis?

If you dared to do such a thing you would cure GW2 of the current stagnation that we are all experiencing barring new game modes.

For better or worse if you could shake up the “meta” on a monthly basis; encouraging me to play unfamiliar classes or unused trait lines (builds) to be optimally effective then you have my attention. Perhaps you might come close to that gamer utopia that we call “balance”.

Or do we as pvp’rs not garner such consideration from Anet?

edit – oh wait this is a meet and greet BS session. I apologize. So my question would be this Allie….

Boxers or briefs?

We expect the feature build to sufficiently shake up the current meta. There will be lots… of fresh… stuff…

Monthly basis is not 100% feasible right now like it was before. We tried to bring you guys consistent updates, but as you noticed not all of them really shook up the meta. The upcoming build will do a better job at that for you. Hopefully in a good way.

did i miss some updates? what monthly basis you speak about?

Josh Davis.6015:

Volrath.1473:

I got a question.

What is the purpose of Ready ups?

Good question. I’ll take this one! Before I was hired at ArenaNet I ran show called “Guild Wars 2 Guru’s State of the Game”. Aside from the forums, it was one of the main bridges we had with the developers behind PvP and balance. Unfortunately for the show, last summer I was hired on at ArenaNet and had to shut it down.

I know we can’t always talk about extensively about what’s in development, but ideally we’d like for Ready Up to fill that gap, even if we’re just goofing around on stream a bit, playing some casual games. Ready Up happens twice as often as State of the Game did, and we won’t always have things to preview. That said, when we are finally ready to show something off, Ready Up is going to be the place you’re going to check it out.

The topics for each show are posted prior to each episode – allowing you to choose if the show is worth your time or not. They’re not mandatory. Even if we’re not talking about balance or features, etc, I’d still love to have everyone come hang out for an hour every two weeks. If you’re not interested in watching scrims, or whatever else we happen to be doing, then we’ll see you at the patch previews.

Hope that helps.

Edit: If you have suggestions for segments or topics for the show, outside of “tell us all the things” feel free to post them. I don’t spend as much time working on the show as I did when I was on the PvP team, but I’m all about improving where we can, and I know Allie feels the same way.

PS, Hi PvP forums, I missss youuuuu!

When will we know what the Alpha team does? I hope it’s at least indirectly PVP related. Seems like a waste for a man of your stature not to do PVP stuff.

Dwaynas Avatar.1562:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Monthly basis is not 100% feasible right now like it was before.

PvE had (useless) monthly updates for 1 year

Speak for yourself. Those updates are awesome for people that do both modes.

Also PvE is the breadwinner of the family, it gets more love and stuff.

silvermember.8941:

Dwaynas Avatar.1562:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Monthly basis is not 100% feasible right now like it was before.

PvE had (useless) monthly updates for 1 year

Speak for yourself. Those updates are awesome for people that do both modes.

Also PvE is the breadwinner of the family, it gets more love and stuff.

well somehow stupid argumentation. pvp could also be a source of income. but that doesnt comes out of nirvana.

the next point against that stupid argumentation you delivered is that a good pvp needs less ressources then pve, cause the users create the content. so yeah pve maybe delievers more atm but it uses more ressources to get running.

Josh Davis.6015:

Volrath.1473:

I got a question.

What is the purpose of Ready ups?

Good question. I’ll take this one! Before I was hired at ArenaNet I ran show called “Guild Wars 2 Guru’s State of the Game”. Aside from the forums, it was one of the main bridges we had with the developers behind PvP and balance. Unfortunately for the show, last summer I was hired on at ArenaNet and had to shut it down.

I know we can’t always talk about extensively about what’s in development, but ideally we’d like for Ready Up to fill that gap, even if we’re just goofing around on stream a bit, playing some casual games. Ready Up happens twice as often as State of the Game did, and we won’t always have things to preview. That said, when we are finally ready to show something off, Ready Up is going to be the place you’re going to check it out.

So it’s the ANet PR version of SoTG?

Honestly Grouch, I’d rather have the old SoTG back. What if the community put together a SOTG every couple of weeks and you guys sat in on them occasionally and provided feedback?

Oh – I’ve got an even better idea. Every week how about some of your Balance Team guys sit down and review the Mists weekly PvP match, then post some commentary reviewing the gameplay and your thoughts about how the game, and the meta, played out.

You could call it: Grouch’s Corner

AlbertoUlkesh.4517:

Why is the feature build such a big secret?

Because the new game modes will be hotjoin only and they don’t want to tell people because they don’t want inconvenient feedback (i.e. that hotjoin only will make the new game mode irrelevant and do more to kill that game than grow it)

Because the “balance” patch will change nothing.

Because it is coming in may and they are afraid if they tell people everyone will quit.

Volrath.1473:

…i prefer the SOTG since you would invite players to interact with the devs and ask questions and sow their point if view on specific issues that I’m sure most of us players would agree with.

This new RU is scripted, players have no interaction with it whatsoever… Sure we can ask questions in the forum but they are handpicked…

SOTG was much more genuine and I remember devs making notes and acknowledging our concerns and even identifying bugs in that show.

I feel much the same. SoTG was a much more meaningful, productive show for the reasons Volrath noted. I’d like to suggest RU adopt SoTG’s format of direct player to dev communication, if not for the whole show, then at least for a portion of each show.

Are there any plans to investigate the (lack of) popularity of skyhammer?

Will we one day see a little more transparency between patches? It seems that months go by and we are always getting the “we aren’t ready” mantra. It doesn’t have to be ready! Just go in to a little bit of detail in the direction you’re taking to build up a little excitement for PvPers. We have no idea what’s coming in the feature patch, for example, and it’s hard to build excitement when you’re left in the dark and don’t know if you’re expecting big or little things. Cheese Mode have quit for this reason. Just some snippets would be nice.

Will a formal, in-game GvG feature ever be implemented?