Guild Wars 2

I think its awesome what you guys are doing and how its progressing.

But I wanted to ask if it would be possible to have an in game, in WVW e-mail sent out every time there is a new poll ? Like you guys did with the 1st one. Most players that play WVW actually do not visit these forums (at least on the server I am on and its linked partner). Many were really surprised when I mentioned them on teamspeak.

Also, without this, many of the polls will end up being skewed by groups, but if more players are aware and take the time to vote, then manipulating the polls will be harder to do and the results will be more accurate. I think the players that will not come to vote, will be those who have little or no interest in the subject matter of the poll and those players would be alright with either result or uneffected by it at all.

This can give you a much better feedback then you are getting currently.

They do give notifications of a new poll through the mail, as long as you have over 10 wvw ranks, and gain a rank while the poll is running, this way actual active wvw players are getting the notification, and not just pve’ers doing dailies. I got my notice this week when I leveled a rank.

If players can’t spend a minute to log into the forums and check an option on the poll, then they just don’t care, no point trying to force a vote on someone who doesn’t care.

The intended consequence: inform active Wvw players.

The unintended consequence: miss those players who currently aren’t in Wvw for some reason – whether it’s the map, current population balance, frustration over being on a linked server, etc. So your sample set is skewed.

Good info, Tyler, thanks.

Tyler, correct me if I am wrong but doesn’t some type of in-game polling system already exist… at least it used to exist.

I distinctly remember in-game feedback forms in the beta tied to events.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Also, we’ve noticed that once the total number of votes has reached a certain threshold , votes tend to stabilize, and doubling or tripling the number of votes tends to make very little impact on the final result.

OP is saying current voters are only from a certain, unrepresentative, subset of players. Whether votes stabilize amongst this group doesn’t affect the fact that it’s unrepresentative.

Thanks, Tyler. Good info.

Hitting the guys in the BL’s grinding it out against opponents will get the real active players. I bet a large % of them, did not vote. Looking forward to the in-game polling – or heck place a npc with a story mode star over his head in the main keeps.

I haven’t personally liked the final result of any poll yet, but I think the methodology of informing active players is pretty good.

Tyler, do you have any actual statistics about how active the dbl’s were during their entire life post HoT up until Alpine return vs how many people played alpine during the same duration of time? About 6 months or so.
These numbers will be quite substantially different I imagine and can eliminate one side saying the poll is skewed by the other or the concept of “my guild mates didn’t vote because”
Also, just so we we can put the numbers into a ratio, are we able to see active wvw participation total during those times used to estimate bl participation?

Wouldn’t adding a link during the WvW loading screen be an option similar to when the ESL matches are being streamed on twitch?

Skarpo.8635:

Wouldn’t adding a link during the WvW loading screen be an option similar to when the ESL matches are being streamed on twitch?

This option would work except that it requires a game update to turn on/off the link, just like the ESL.

Tyler could it be possible to repurpose the /wiki command to create a /poll command? Thus when you get the ingame mail about there being a poll you can instruct them to use /poll to open the poll in a browser like the /wiki command does.

Main benefit being people don’t forget about it between receiving the mail and when they finally log off. In wvw it’s often go go go so not feeling like you have to completely leave game to check out the poll or wait until you finish wvw for the night often hours later and forget about it by then

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We chose to target active players for polls, because they are actually playing WvW and thus have the largest stake in the result. Many inactive players may never come back, or come back only briefly. We don’t think it would be fair to let the votes of those who have quit playing shape the result for those that are still playing.

So basically the more people like the decisions that you make (which are the people that continue to play), the more of a say they will get in the direction of the game. Essentially a “Like promotes like” mentality.

Its odd that the initial barrage of changes that were made were supposedly made to “bring people back to the game” and now the people that leave as a result of the changes are just considered less important and their opinions don’t matter.

It’s one thing to say that you are doing what the majority Anet customers want, it’s another thing to cull the population into one that better fits your desired design outcomes.

I think its clear that Anet is moving towards a blob war design. You should really just come clean and stop with the pretend consensus thing that you are doing.

If I had to guess, you are appealing to the crowd that spends the most money. And that is fine … its a business. I just find the polls a bit disingenuous.

Good luck with this approach.

I like the fact that you guys send us an in-game mail when you have a new poll up. I agree inactive players should not be pursued for voting.

Scamp.5296:

I like the fact that you guys send us an in-game mail when you have a new poll up. I agree inactive players should not be pursued for voting.

So you like that anet customers that don’t like the changes should be forced to run around the maps daily and level to get access to the poll which decide which way the game will go?

In other words, engage in time consuming activity that isn’t entertaining just for the hope that eventually a poll will get posted that will allow them an opportunity to show that they don’t like it.

Two words.

Echo Chamber.

TorquedSoul.8097:

Scamp.5296:

I like the fact that you guys send us an in-game mail when you have a new poll up. I agree inactive players should not be pursued for voting.

So you like that anet customers that don’t like the changes should be forced to run around the maps daily and level to get access to the poll which decide which way the game will go?

In other words, engage in time consuming activity that isn’t entertaining just for the hope that eventually a poll will get posted that will allow them an opportunity to show that they don’t like it.

Two words.

Echo Chamber.

I would rather they message and alert active players that actually participate in the gamemode they are trying to get player feedback on. If you quit or find wvw such a time consuming activity, why should anyone care what you think? Furthermore why should anyone bend over backwards for you, if you want to participate its up to you, if you quit and have little interest in the game, why should they go after you?

X T D.6458:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Scamp.5296:

I like the fact that you guys send us an in-game mail when you have a new poll up. I agree inactive players should not be pursued for voting.

So you like that anet customers that don’t like the changes should be forced to run around the maps daily and level to get access to the poll which decide which way the game will go?

In other words, engage in time consuming activity that isn’t entertaining just for the hope that eventually a poll will get posted that will allow them an opportunity to show that they don’t like it.

Two words.

Echo Chamber.

I would rather they message and alert active players that actually participate in the gamemode they are trying to get player feedback on. If you quit or find wvw such a time consuming activity, why should anyone care what you think? Furthermore why should anyone bend over backwards for you, if you want to participate its up to you, if you quit and have little interest in the game, why should they go after you?

Considering that Anet made all the recent changed to bring back all those people who had stopped playing (aka quit/inactive), I find your statement pretty ironic.

I seriously doubt that anet is promoting an unhealthy level of WvW participation. So suggesting that Anet shouldn’t worry about what casuals think is pretty lame. Expecting players to engage in a oncologically dangerous level of game play activity shouldn’t be required to have a say in polls. We are all paying customers. To think that they should not have a say is just an extension of the “They are not real WvW players.” Ego check.

In the end you will get with your want: Blob vs Blob. You are already getting it. And those that prefer havoc play basically being told to adjust or leave.

In the end, Whether or not those havoc players are a smaller group than those blob players will be known by the activity changes over time. I suspect some players will blob as a result of wanting to stay in the community … but many will just go elsewhere.

So long as Anet can cash in on the Blobbers they wont care. The linking carousal will keep the transfer money flowing as everyone moves to restack after relinking. The profitability of WvW has been solved.

Have fun. I will be back when havoc play becomes a possibility again.

X T D.6458:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Scamp.5296:

I like the fact that you guys send us an in-game mail when you have a new poll up. I agree inactive players should not be pursued for voting.

So you like that anet customers that don’t like the changes should be forced to run around the maps daily and level to get access to the poll which decide which way the game will go?

In other words, engage in time consuming activity that isn’t entertaining just for the hope that eventually a poll will get posted that will allow them an opportunity to show that they don’t like it.

Two words.

Echo Chamber.

I would rather they message and alert active players that actually participate in the gamemode they are trying to get player feedback on. If you quit or find wvw such a time consuming activity, why should anyone care what you think? Furthermore why should anyone bend over backwards for you, if you want to participate its up to you, if you quit and have little interest in the game, why should they go after you?

The players who boycotted the DBL certainly got a say in having that tabled, and potential and alienated players are worthy of consideration.

Player retention and regaining former players should interest the game developers.

Torqued you speak like you can not vote in the poll without getting the ingame notification.

Untrue

I have voted in every poll prior to meeting the conditions in wvw to get the ingame mail, which I don’t get because I have already voted.

The ingame mail is an extra reminder for those whose friends and guilds have not told them of the vote or missed all the various places in social media and forums that anet posts about the polls bring up.

Teraphas.6210:

Torqued you speak like you can not vote in the poll without getting the ingame notification.

Untrue

I have voted in every poll prior to meeting the conditions in wvw to get the ingame mail, which I don’t get because I have already voted.

The ingame mail is an extra reminder for those whose friends and guilds have not told them of the vote or missed all the various places in social media and forums that anet posts about the polls bring up.

I was responding directly to Tyler’s comment. It seemed to imply that the feedback from inactive players in the forum was not valued anymore.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We chose to target active players for polls, because they are actually playing WvW and thus have the largest stake in the result. Many inactive players may never come back, or come back only briefly. We don’t think it would be fair to let the votes of those who have quit playing shape the result for those that are still playing.

Those “inactive” players have had more than a month now to come back since Alpine and the other major changes happened to WvW in April. If they haven’t been keeping up on the game with the forums or through friends during the time they left, I think it’s safe to say they’re not interested in GW2 anymore.

The polls aren’t even limited to voting in game which some have suggested for Anet to do, it’s on the website linked through the forums, accounts aren’t locked behind subs, they’re free to log in and vote. Seriously, if someone hasn’t been following the game since leaving, they’re not interested in the future direction of the game.

Anet doesn’t need to go the extra mile after those former players for opinions, they need to gather information from their current active players, and those that follow in the main/reddit forums.

If at some point some players come back, then great, they can jump in and participate in the forum discussions and polls like everyone else. If they wanted Anet could do a one time email to players about recent changes, current discussions and polls for wvw. Pretty sure an email was sent about the quarterly updates, if players haven’t returned to even check that out what more you want for Anet to do? go the players house with a bat in hand and demand they log on to vote?

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We agree that a fully in-game polling system would be better than the current setup. However, it’s a question of priorities. Is it better to spend months building out an in-game polling system, which would indirectly benefit players? Or spend that same time building features that directly benefit WvW players, like additional scoring or quality of life improvements? Perhaps that will be one of the options on the next prioritization poll.

Our current polling method still has high participation. Large numbers of players from every world vote in every poll. Also, we’ve noticed that once the total number of votes has reached a certain threshold , votes tend to stabilize, and doubling or tripling the number of votes tends to make very little impact on the final result.

Good stuff. If I may, I’d suggest you set up a wider array of options for the next one, if possible. While WvW has its format-specific concerns and necessary updates, there are some like balance concerns which really should get addressed, which often influence things like coverage/participation from people moving/leaving, etc. Obviously these impact and share space with PvE, so this is something that’d probably need to get moved to another team, but even the state of balance and the dynamic of how the game plays affects what may/could be implemented into WvW. It’d be a shame to have all this effort go into fixing the game mode, but still have some major and glaring issues with the gameplay of the mode itself tied to classes/stats/runes etc. go unchanged.

A big class concept CDI might be in order as to both identify what problem areas exist, and in what flavorful and reasonable ways these can be adjusted in their respected classes to fit all game modes.

Xenesis.6389:

Those “inactive” players have had more than a month now to come back since Alpine and the other major changes happened to WvW in April. If they haven’t been keeping up on the game with the forums or through friends during the time they left, I think it’s safe to say they’re not interested in GW2 anymore.

The polls aren’t even limited to voting in game which some have suggested for Anet to do, it’s on the website linked through the forums, accounts aren’t locked behind subs, they’re free to log in and vote. Seriously, if someone hasn’t been following the game since leaving, they’re not interested in the future direction of the game.

Anet doesn’t need to go the extra mile after those former players for opinions, they need to gather information from their current active players, and those that follow in the main/reddit forums.

If at some point some players come back, then great, they can jump in and participate in the forum discussions and polls like everyone else. If they wanted Anet could do a one time email to players about recent changes, current discussions and polls for wvw. Pretty sure an email was sent about the quarterly updates, if players haven’t returned to even check that out what more you want for Anet to do? go the players house with a bat in hand and demand they log on to vote?

The suggestion that they are focusing only on “active” WvW players seems to dismiss those players that have stopped playing due to recent changes but still frequent the forums to keep up on the changes. It seems at one point they tried to run a poll without posting a notification in the forums, instead a player posted the existence of the poll AND THEN Anet posted the topic thread about the poll.

If Anet continues to post notifications in the forums, there isn’t a problem. But I’m not sure that is their intent.

TorquedSoul.8097:

The suggestion that they are focusing only on “active” WvW players seems to dismiss those players that have stopped playing due to recent changes but still frequent the forums to keep up on the changes. It seems at one point they tried to run a poll without posting a notification in the forums, instead a player posted the existence of the poll AND THEN Anet posted the topic thread about the poll.

If those players stopped playing recently but still check the forums, they know what’s going on, there’s been a ton of activity in this section of the forums. If they stopped playing and don’t check on the forums or at least keep in touch with friends about things then they’re just not interested, it’s that simple. I stopped playing wvw from Nov- Apr and GW2 altogether from Jan-Apr, but I still checked the forums regularly to see if anything was happening.

Their current system wasn’t in place for the first few polls, they were working on it, it was mentioned before by Tyler that it was in the works and would be out before the end of May, which it was. One poll was released earlier than expected, because I believe the marketing team is also in on this and not just the wvw team running the polls, so some communication probably got crossed.

TorquedSoul.8097:

If Anet continues to post notifications in the forums, there isn’t a problem. But I’m not sure that is their intent.

Not sure what you mean by that, if they wanted to hide anything they would just… not run the polls.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Also, we’ve noticed that once the total number of votes has reached a certain threshold , votes tend to stabilize, and doubling or tripling the number of votes tends to make very little impact on the final result.

Yeah, alot of people in America feel the same way about Presidential Elections…

Daemonne.5018:

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Also, we’ve noticed that once the total number of votes has reached a certain threshold , votes tend to stabilize, and doubling or tripling the number of votes tends to make very little impact on the final result.

Yeah, alot of people in America feel the same way about Presidential Elections…

Sure there is a point were adding more people doesn’t make a difference, but having a representative sample is still important. If the selection process is biased, then the results are biased.

And yes, we see this in U.S. media all the time regarding politics. Most polls are made to produce the answer the funding entity wants.

WvW has lost so many players that they pretty much have to court former players to return. How else is the population ever going to go back up to decent levels?

It just seems to me like these polls are a way to delay everything substantial for 1 more year. Then they’ll probably announce that it’s part of the next expansion pack.

Just implement the map rotation on reset (weekly) instead of of making months of surveys and having people argue on things they can’t even try.

Every good suggestions, like having 4 different maps, are completely ignored anyway.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We agree that a fully in-game polling system would be better than the current setup. However, it’s a question of priorities. Is it better to spend months building out an in-game polling system, which would indirectly benefit players? Or spend that same time building features that directly benefit WvW players, like additional scoring or quality of life improvements? Perhaps that will be one of the options on the next prioritization poll.

Our current polling method still has high participation. Large numbers of players from every world vote in every poll. Also, we’ve noticed that once the total number of votes has reached a certain threshold , votes tend to stabilize, and doubling or tripling the number of votes tends to make very little impact on the final result.

Thanks for answering Tyler

I see where the disparity comes in. As I usually play casually and roaming / havoc style on weekdays, often in off peak hours, mornings PST and sometimes very late nights PST, I do not accumulate ranks anywhere near the rate which I do in large scale group play on weekends. Likewise, very often, this also applies to people I play with. I would imagine same is true for others on other servers / links as well.

This does not mean we are less active, indeed some of us may be far more active players then the “main” groups, it means exactly and precisely what I said, we accumulate ranks at a much, much slower rate, thus did not get the ingame mails.

I most certainly understand the reasoning and benefits of doing what was done and largely agree with this, however I am wondering if the bar could be made a bit lower to encompass a bit more players, not a lot, just a bit.

Thanks