Guild Wars 2

I don’t think this is a smart move Anet. Expect to see match-up threads pop up in the discussion part of the WvW subforums to bypass this. Plus you have to remember, if anybody is new, they’ll ask why there isn’t a subforum for that sort of thing, and before long you’ll see lots of people asking it to come back, which you will eventually submit to and reinstate it (I’ve seen this song and dance before). Just put a disclaimer (a big one) stating “Warning, while we try to moderate, this is mostly a nuclear zone, we can’t catch everything. Enter at your own risk.”

WvW isn’t a legitimate game mode is why.

KOPPER.1458:

Simply stop using the forms and stick to reddit, or Guru or wherever. Going even slightly off topic can result in an infraction. There are a lot of rules to follow if you dislike them then it’s best to not even bother.

I am not saying I approve of name calling or the such but these forums feel a lot more restricted than many other MMO boards in the past. Just my opinion on the matter.

Instead of removal just moderate it better.

edit: As a player and a fan of this game, it feels like any time something is broken or not working the solution is to remove it. In game, in the forums, wherever. Why is this always the solution?

Yep. Lotsa posts removed or infarcted and the person handling the emails when you complain about this is the same person causing the problem. Great PR.

I guess they squeezed as much money as they as they have been abandoned and wildstar will be the last coffin in their nail.

Hmm. So far it seems this is a 50/50 split on what people think if its good or bad as a change perspective.

Few questions:
- Do people think this is a reaction to season forum wars? (We’ve never had massive complaints by devs before on forum moderation of the match up threads)
- Do you personally believe WvW is getting the shaft from Anet again? Or do you believe the community brought this upon themselves?
- Do you in your opinion find the match up threads entertaining or more along the lines of an atrocity?
- While we know the WvW community is the most outspoken, do you feel this is an attempt to silence us more, or simply allow their mods an easier time?
- How do you feel with Anets current moderation philosophy and and activity to combat toxic and distributive posts?

I will answer the very last one myself here, because I have noticed this and have a strong opinion on it. I have noticed seemingly hateful and rude posts be completely ignored by the moderation team, where has gifs, images, and compliments will be removed for derailing a thread. I feel anet moderating overall in its entirety needs a complete and utter overhaul. As someone has stated before this is one of the most heavily moderated forums I have ever been on.

Well seeing as that particular sub-forum had so many threads constantly violating the Code of Conduct that we should all be familiar with now, Anet mods really have no choice. We can’t have one sub-forum where it’s totally okay to violate those codes and others where it is not. It undermines the system that Anet have put in place to keep the forums a friendly and respectable place for everyone involved. It’s a shame that this community tool is being removed, but I completely understand why it has to happen.

KOPPER.1458:

Simply stop using the forms and stick to reddit, or Guru or wherever. Going even slightly off topic can result in an infraction. There are a lot of rules to follow if you dislike them then it’s best to not even bother.

I am not saying I approve of name calling or the such but these forums feel a lot more restricted than many other MMO boards in the past. Just my opinion on the matter.

Instead of removal just moderate it better.

edit: As a player and a fan of this game, it feels like any time something is broken or not working the solution is to remove it. In game, in the forums, wherever. Why is this always the solution?

This pretty much, they spend way to much time moderating the server forums because they spend way to much time moderating period.

Spend less time worrying about people getting their feelings hurt on a forum.

Moderate stuff that needs to be taken care of, like racist crap, or spamming…

Modding something because someone called another guy a noob isn’t productive use of time.

Atharsia.3249:

Good call.

Whoever calls this censorship must remember that the so-called freedom of speech is not a “I can say whatever I want, however I want and whenever I want” right, it has boundaries and that sub-forum was clearly trespassing most of them.

(As most forums, but this is an official gateway for Anet too, and having that sub-forum was hurting their image more than helping it. Just deal with it, and take the circlejerks elsewhere, its that simple)

We’re not debating whether it is within Anet’s rights to shut down the forum. There’s no freedom of speech and Anet may censor and shut down whatever forum they wish — these forums belong to them.

However, we’re asking whether shutting down these forums is a good idea on Anet’s part.

IMO it’ll hurt Anet’s own interest if they push people to go elsewhere for their forum needs since Anet has far less control over outside forums.

The moderator “team” here is simply overboard with their actions. It isn’t new and this change honestly doesn’t surprise me. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if I get infracted for this post, solely because it’s taking a “critical” tone.

If you remove the WvW matchups you are effectively killing off the vast majority of the WvW section of this forum. Do you honestly expect people, people who are already disillusioned with this game, to just move off-site and start their own forum for this?

Give me a break: either use your forums or don’t. Quit acting like WE are to blame. AFAIK, no one in those forum discussions got IRL kitten over ANYTHING. Instead, it was the mods who consistently blew everything up and got things heated with constant edits and removals.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the General Discussion section was next. Hell, you guys should really delete that CDI post due to all the “heated” discussion in there.

KOPPER.1458:

As a player and a fan of this game, it feels like any time something is broken or not working the solution is to remove it. In game, in the forums, wherever. Why is this always the solution?

Effort is not an option. Anet has a history of laziness and cutting corners. Since gw1 when skills were randomly buffed with little regard for balance and the complete deletion of two pvp game modes after repeated promises that they would be fixed.

Made a shot at it, let me know if this is usable to you all

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Best-forum-to-host-the-NA-WvW-matchups/first#post3395234

Anet is encouraging the player base to use a different venue to discuss WvW matches. They are being naive if they think the venues to host such communities are going to stop with just WvW matches as the subject matter. They are jeopardizing their entire feedback loop.

Back in the day, I used to play several MMORPGs (by various developers). Those games took the same mentality at release that Anet is doing now. They tried to separate themselves from the mudslinging that happens on forums.

The consequences of that separation ran pretty deep. The gaming communities found other venues to host forums (VNBoards was big back in the day). Since so much discussion started happening on 3rd party forums (that the developers didn’t always know about), the developers lost touch with their target audience…. which made the overall health of the games suffer. The developers then decided they would try to participate in those 3rd party forums, but found they had absolutely no influence over the community and had a less than stellar feedback loop. In some cases, it drove a wedge between the developers and the gamers.

In my honest opinion, if they truly want to continue a quality and productive feedback loop with gaming community, they should think long and hard about dismantling any part of it, no matter how productive (or unproductive, as it may be) it is. Once they jump down this rabbit hole, it’ll take a long rope to climb back out …. Anet will have to gain the trust of the community before they’d be willing to come back. In this day and age, having an offline gathering place for a given game is a necessity, requiring dedicated staff to maintain it.

I do think changes are necessary to keep the WvW matchups forum healthy, but closing the forum entirely seems to be rather extreme. I find it hard to believe they have exhausted all other options.

Let’s hope Anet has considered what I’m talking about and are prepared for what’s ahead.

0 reason to come to the Official Forums now, gg.

So just post matchup threads in General WvW. What are they gonna do? Ban their entire user base?

JaNordy.6149:

So just post matchup threads in General WvW. What are they gonna do? Ban their entire user base?

They’ll just delete the threads. One quick look at the thread title and OP will tell them whether it’s matchup-related. If so, they’ll delete. Super easy for their moderation team.

match-up threads are more fun to read than living story.

it’s ok guys, we still have the ingame events forum.

Wat, my entire game play has been altered by relationships with enemies I’ve met on these forums and then talked to in game. My whole wvw experience has been more positive because of it. Being a better player, learning from other servers.. this isn’t WWII. It’s a video game and the community is the main reason we play MMOs.

Well wherever we move, I’m still using “kitten” for censorship.

All of us will be able to look back on these days, as the golden days of forum warrioring.

All is Vain

Personally I think they need to take a page out of Riots book. Have they majorly screwed up a time or two and have had to give a community apology (whether it be on something they said would happen and didn’t, or something they said that was insulting/border over the line), sure it’s happened. But their staff actually INTERACTS in a REAL AND MEANINGFUL way with the community. They engage, they talk things over, they post about what they’re working on, or their thoughts on balance ect. None of the “Hi there, we at ArenaNet…” No, they speak for themselves as a person unless of course it’s some announcement that requires them to say “Hey guys, this is what’s up”.

Now, I’m not saying that when staff here post, it isn’t meaningful. But it isn’t real, it sounds dictated and pre-written, not at all one human speaking to another. Also, can their forums get crazy? Absolutely… but for the most part, as long as we aren’t calling people out, seriously flaming or posting porn, we’re left along to have discussions. If you guys want this to be able to turn into an Esport, you’re going to have to get used to kitten talking, because it happens in ANY competitive environement. It’s what gets people riled up and rearing to go, it’s develops rivalries and promotes the competition.

This is Guild Wars 2, not Neopets, do I think people should be flaming/trolling or being complete kittenes? Not at all. Do I think the moderation and general tone of the forums could use a loosening of the steel grip it currently has? Absolutely.

Problem is Anet still hasn’t figured out why people create Matchup threads in the first place.

Its not to tell people how well they’ve done, its to give your enemy crap.

Its been that way in every Faction or Server based pvp game to date.

But nope…that’s strictly forbidden on here… Can’t have people hurting other people’s feelings.

I think maybe the CC team doesnt really get the nature of competition. The match up threads provide the trash talking, calling out, drama, tears, cheers that competition brings. You hate your opponent then you love em.

I can see why they may want to offload the man hours of moderation, but ehhh it really is a big part of the entertainment factor in the match ups. Its not the end of the world, but i dunno kind of feels like they are out of touch with competitor’s mindstates. Interaction with the enemy is part of the process. Overall, i will agree that the team seems a bit over zealous and disconnected from the game/discussions/community. Some things they moderate do seem like a waste of time/not really interupting/effecting discussion.

Good Call

If people quit over this than they quit lol.

I wonder though…..will they really quit? Or are they forum warriors just trolling like they normally do?

Hmm Oh well, we will just have to wait and see either way is good IMO. I play the game more than read these forums which I feel is the opposite for others and probably the people that are most upset with this lol. I know that’s an assumption, but some of the “trolls” just have sooo many posts and they post so often at any time of the day…

I will say something positive for the people that dislike this though and that is I believe it is ANET’s fault as to why they are taking this step. They should of been stricter from the beginning. Season 1 is a prime example.

Also not all troll posts were bad, like the noob calling or the calling out of guilds. Those imo were fine to a point. The ones that annoyed me personally were the idiotic posts from people blatantly saying things about other servers or people and not understanding that there server or people on there server do the exact same things.

The posts by those people are the ones that bring up most of the arguments that will then lead to misconduct of the TOS. I mean the blob/hack/spy/buying posts. Then again I guess that’s why people are mad this is going away because they can’t do that anymore.

I know people will disagree with me, but hey…I don’t post often and this is a discussion thread so I’m okay with that.

I told you not to poke the hornet’s nest with a stick.

bah, not a great move but guess they don’t like to clean up threads, and this comes to no real surprise, they infracted ppl for breathing, but instead of promoting a better discussion let’s just shut it down, its always the best policy.

However, closing and INFRACTING anyone starting a thread in the new year about a match up is a draconian move, like some of the other Anet community care solutions.

As some people already stated, removing report button, slapping a sticky with a notice that matchup subforum is not moderated and maybe even removing the kitten filter would make the life of both ANet moderators and WvW community much better.

Hell, if they did that maybe the rest of the “hurr durr me no like x” crew would join in the fun, so in the end WvW matchup forum would become the place to vent all of the frustrations leaving other forums open for (at least a bit more) constructive discussion.

From my PoV this desicion is a massive flop, maybe one of the biggest since beta!

Tbh, some wordings, flames, blaa … are on the edge or one step ahead, but who are we?? We are all humans, all with different oppinions and styles of using forums. All the users in the MU-Forums are guys and girls, who are having fun ingame and here in the forums – everyone on their own style – maybe some cooling down and thinking about the reply before typing will be the more right way, but again – everone has it´s own style and personality. This sould be agreed and if there´s to much of „pureness“ it should be avenged, but closing the whole subforum is … meh … anyway

I think a lot of WvWers are only comming to the forums (no matter if replying or just reading – take a look at the number of views) caused by the MU-threads and they are maybe also looking into other subforums, maybe writing something there or not, but they are also doing their thing for the community.

This is a incredible badbeat for a WvW-player, the WvW-Community and at least for the complete community

And, no offense, animating the WvWer to move their beloved MU-Threads to an external forum/host is a really cheap move

Atharsia.3249:

Good call.

Whoever calls this censorship must remember that the so-called freedom of speech is not a “I can say whatever I want, however I want and whenever I want” right, it has boundaries and that sub-forum was clearly trespassing most of them.

(As most forums, but this is an official gateway for Anet too, and having that sub-forum was hurting their image more than helping it. Just deal with it, and take the circlejerks elsewhere, its that simple)

Problem 1 with this statement (already mentioned, want to re-iterate): We’re not arguing they don’t have the right, we’re arguing it’s not a good idea.

Problem 2 with this statement: It’d hurt their image more if we moved to more public gaming forums in which more people that haven’t purchased the game yet existed.

I also believe that the observation that this is simply an attempt to scale down mod staff effort is correct – I think very little of the reasoning that the ANET staff presented actually had to do with what kind of moderation would be best for the players on the forum. I cannot confirm this, as I cannot read their minds, however, it seems more logical, regardless of reasoning given by them.

That being said, ANET, if you are reading this, or anyone else, if you are reading this and simply are interested in the subject, understand that it is of my belief and that of several others that this simply isn’t going to work. I think what is key to understand here is:
1) People are going to try to post matchup threads anyways. Some of them will do so intentionally because you got rid of the matchup thread as a statement. Even if they do not, they will be craftier in insulting other servers, using random opportunities on threads as general as discussing the value of zergs vs small groups, etc. Because of this, you will find that you will not lower the necessity of forum moderators as much as you think it is.
2) This is not a good trade-off. Once the matchup threads are gone from the forums, I’m gone from the forums, an awful lot of people are gone from the forums. Effectively, you are severing a major link of communication between you and your players, which, might I add, are providing the profits through gems to even have this forum active.
3) This will lower general opinions of the ANET WvW team. Perhaps one of the reasons that you are considering this action is the occasional slander of ANET staff within the forums, and how the matchup threads are popular enough that this becomes popularly viewed, and thus popularly received as opinion. The problem is that literally every server has their own community site, and sees this anyways, in even less moderated levels. By getting rid of the matchup thread, people will be more redirected to these forums, which, combined with the severance of communication, is a perfect formula for an unhappy wvw populace.
4) Most of the WvW population really, really isn’t interested in switching to less server-intensive modes such as PvE. Just in case it is within your intentions to get us out of WvW into other modes simply because WvW is relatively server-taxing and hard to sell gem-items from due to the fact that it’s supposed to be fair and isn’t about glimmer, please understand that most of us don’t like PvE, and we only do so when we have to to stay competitive in WvW. I know countless people who leveled up their characters to 80 via crafting so they wouldn’t have to PvE with them all the way to 80. If they are disgusted with the way WvW works, they won’t just go into PvE and start forking out more gems. They’re simply gone.
5) Many individuals have been disillusioned by leagues. Repealing this decision would be a very effective way of reminding them that the ANET team does indeed consider their opinions as valid and important.

silly thing to do. People only remember the trolls but don’t remember the good things the forums encouraged. Friendships between cross server guilds and friendly rivalry. The trolls will still be there when you delete the forums.

I think the mod team were doing most of the work in the WvW section modding the match-up thread and have now given up on all this effort.

Deleting the sub-forum won’t really help. Those people that you need to moderate will still post in other threads and match-up conflicts will bleed in to other threads.

Threads to promote a single video with be more I think since there is not a centralized place to post them like the matchup thread.

Threads that point out a grievance against one server or the other (hacking, exploiting, 2v1ing, zerg chasing roamer etc..) will increase because again people will not be able to post in a match up thread.

I agree with other posters that people will try to make match up threads on their own.

Honestly I mostly view this forum for the match-up threads and with out them I think maybe I will only view this forum once a week or maybe once a month. Furthermore I think this move gives me a very poor opinion on how Anet views the WvW community.

I hope another site will rise up that will take the place of the official forums. If Anet had not noticed that most of the websites we use is not by Anet. Server forums are run by server communities independent of anet. ranking and map websites are also independent of Anet only using the API. My link to Anet as a WvWer who could not care less about PVE is the WvW forums (which are now getting smaller)

What is stopping the WvW community to just leave this forums and set up their own that all servers use and abandon the official site once and for all?

come on Anet TESO is coming out next year, Wildstar has warplots for their large scale PVP , and CU is from the creators of DAoC do you really want give people more reasons to abandon your game?

Big plus to ANet for making this decision, hated that section of forums, there mostly wasn’t anything constructive for Gw2 and / or WvW

Faith in ANet restored

Terrible idea. Another nail in the coffin of wvw- rather than deal with the flyhacks, wall exploits etc that are frequently reported in forums Anet want to shovel it under the carpet.

However they choose to dress it up, that’s the way people will perceive it.

Match up threads, taken with a bit of salt, are usually a good read- and no one is forcing you to read them or take part in them.

I’m guessing the mods will be deleting threads from the main wvw discussion forums and handing out infractions every day as people try and post about any match up in there after the match up forum is closed.

Good PvP game. Maybe we should start to throw snowballs in www because it’s kind of violent use swords and hammers.

I think the problem is that the forum rules don’t match what we do in game every day. Most of us that play wvw and read these forums hear far worse on TS or in chat every day. Their posting on the whole thing is very disingenuous, acting as if they don’t know how public forums work (especially in pvp games), and try to blame the players rather then how they structured the rules and expectations.

Anet needs to adjust the rules for this to work. They should be harsher for certain things like racism or obvious spamming, but let the community sort out the rest. So what if someone accuses someone else of hacking? Why in the world is that an infraction? Aren’t we adults enough to handle that ourselves?

If something is an obvious troll or unsubstantiated accusation, I think we can figure that out for ourselves and get over it. Anyone that takes things posted in a public forum personally, should probably just disconnect from the internet anyways. This is how it works. I might not like all that goes along with it, but it is what it is and you learn to filter out the noise, or simply don’t read it.

After your first visit, you would have realised those threads are a cesspool, so any complaints that “it’s so vile to read each week” is entirely self-imposed. It’s like kitten , these people complain and rage so much and I can’t just stop navigating here, right? :o

This is so hilarious.

People are complaining about people exploiting because there are game-breaking exploits and people doing them, that haven’t been dealt with

People are complaining about matchups because matchups tend to be terrible

But no, don’t fix any of that. Just stop players from talking about it. God knows that’s what’s been going on since release anyway.

I can get behind their reasoning. There’s plenty of places on the Internet where we can go hate on each other, probably time a gaming company said “Dudes, this ain’t cool and we’re not gonna give you a platform for it”. People actually think that smack talking each other is just part of competitive gaming (it’s not, it’s just part of being an kitten. People describe what’s just hate, contempt, and disrespect as noise without acknowledging that it doesn’t at all have to be there.

Less theoratical, very few people I know enjoy readin the match up threads – unless you enjoy laughing at people (rather than with them), most of the match threads are noise and nonsense (looking at my thread, 2nd last post is "lol @ the DR BRL thief "). I’ve followed a lot.. not just all of mine since launch and the number of positive community buildin stuff is a minority. Some weeks there was nothin of value.

but… but…

honestly, these forums are the most vanilla-rainbow-sprinkles forums I’ve ever set foot in. And my main forum I visit is dedicated to books.

1) if users cannot point out griefers (with photographic/video evidence) here, then please provide a location where it CAN be done and take appropriate action when it’s done.

2) You can’t change people. They won’t up and change what they’re thinking just because you say so; if this location is no longer usable for the communication that needs to take place, people will move. The moment you have a user base out of your forums, you no longer control anything they say. This means that when the WvW community sets up somewhere else, you’ll not be able to control ANY of the nasty vitriol that they’ll spew. You’ll have no control over the hate directed at ANet. And it will spiral. People love to hate, it’s the mob-mentality; and a common enemy binds people much better than common values. Of course, this also creates a deeply sick society as evidenced by the Soviet Union but I digress.

Anet builds GvG arena to satisfy player base for calls for GvG area.
.
.
.
Removes most efficient way of organizing it.

Good call.

Most of the threads were disgusting. Some people went too far in the snack talk and went for personal attacks. I’m guilty of it due to frustration. Lies are spread behind the safety of a screen. Topics locked all the time. It’s not needed. Good riddance.

KarlusDavius.1024:

Good call.

Most of the threads were disgusting. Some people went too far in the snack talk and went for personal attacks. I’m guilty of it due to frustration. Lies are spread behind the safety of a screen. Topics locked all the time. It’s not needed. Good riddance.

Gusie you from Lavender Hill perhaps?

Since the ANET banner waver is reporting in this thread like crazy, I figured I will give some real insight (that is along those lines as well):

First off, it was a known thing that reporting a post enough times could get users an infraction.

YOU LITERALLY could report people for anything 99% of the time (Several people I know got reported/infracted for simply quoting text and saying nothing more for example). It had become a joke….And everyone knew it.

I miss good old days when you could talk smack in forums and kill low levels in game.

For everyone thinking this is a good idea, you know that no one forced you to go to those threads right? If you did not like or enjoy them, simply do not go to them, it would be like ANET removed them without limiting the rest of us.

Making WvW a competitive game format was always going to bring out the forum trolls / keyboard warriors from every server.

I personally dislike the wording of Anet’s message as to me it is far too heavy handed. To me it sounds like ‘step out of line in the forums wvw community and we will ban you’. Absolutely over the top considering Anet themselves stoked the fires by creating this ‘ultimate finisher’ prize for ‘winning’ a completely unbalanced format.

I’ve long been a believer in Anet and their ideas for WvW however the current mentality is ‘if a problem (that we created) is too much effort / hard to fix we might as well delete / ignore it’.

That is what is truly disappointing!

I play GW2 because I enjoy the game and the combat is fun.
This is probably some corporate decision from the “brass” of arenanet.
It was a pretty “toxic” place, believe it or not.
There was probably some complaints to corporate and this was the solution.
I’m sure the devs that we all know and <3 hate the idea of this because yes, this is a bad thing for the game.
Lets revive Guildwars2guru!!!!!

ArenaNet, as is their prerogative, are infallible. Nothing good will come from this. One step closer to alienating your WvW community is one step closer to the exit sign.

I honestly wish ArenaNet the best for 2014, hopefully their approach to development and integration of the community improves.

Gyuforce.8291:

Lets revive Guildwars2guru!!!!!

The people at GW2guru would be fools to not immediately create a matchups subforum of their own.

Jaxs.5830:

For everyone thinking this is a good idea, you know that no one forced you to go to those threads right? If you did not like or enjoy them, simply do not go to them, it would be like ANET removed them without limiting the rest of us.

For everyone thinking this is a bad idea, you know that there are rules on these forums right? And that rules are supposed to be enforced?

You also know that ArenaNet are responsible for what is written on these forums, and need to make sure that stuff that could be breaking actual laws are removed, right?

lordkrall.7241:

You also know that ArenaNet are responsible for what is written on these forums, and need to make sure that stuff that could be breaking actual laws are removed, right?

You’re hilarious. That’s not even close to being the reason Anet is shutting down the forum.

Lord Kuru.3685:

You’re hilarious. That’s not even close to being the reason Anet is shutting down the forum.

Possibly not. But it is still the case.
They are responsible for it. Thus they either have to spend half their workdays on that specific forum-part or simply shut down the forum, due to the massive amount of abusive content in there.

lordkrall.7241:

Jaxs.5830:

For everyone thinking this is a good idea, you know that no one forced you to go to those threads right? If you did not like or enjoy them, simply do not go to them, it would be like ANET removed them without limiting the rest of us.

For everyone thinking this is a bad idea, you know that there are rules on these forums right? And that rules are supposed to be enforced?

You also know that ArenaNet are responsible for what is written on these forums, and need to make sure that stuff that could be breaking actual laws are removed, right?

Because posting a .gif on a forum is breaking the law.