Guild Wars 2

bug

Did you guys read this article, where Lewis credits the Anet devs for their communication with the player base?

In all honesty – and no offence to Lewis – if the article was written in a different way which seemed less like venting and more like food for thought maybe it would’ve stayed. From the article it seemed that Lewis is pro ranger and anti Anet. Even if that may not be the case I could see why Anet would want such writings removed.

Anet’s doing some head hunting I see.

Apparently the guy who wrote the article has never written anything for TTH before
Even his article history is gone.

Odd. I clicked the link and can see his article history.

yeah, odd, doesn’t show for me still… some sorta bug

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Anet has learned that if anything is said players take the information and run with it. When what has bee said changes it causes more problem then remaining silent (players rage some quit and forums blow up).

I’d argue that more communication would make most people be less likely to cling to what little communication they DO get. It gives a sense of comradery and trust, and simply makes them seem more human. People aren’t as rigid with friends as they are with strangers. ArenaNet needs to be less of a stranger to the community, Ranger or otherwise.

Well, for those that didn’t get to read the article, just copy the URL from the first post and paste it into Google and view the cached version.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Well, for those that didn’t get to read the article, just copy the URL from the first post and paste it into Google and view the cached version.

Which is http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5UE_TlnfUfcJ:www.tentonhammer.com/columns/persistent-worlds/persistent-worlds-where-profession-developer-engagement+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Wondrouswall.7169:

Well, for those that didn’t get to read the article, just copy the URL from the first post and paste it into Google and view the cached version.

Which is http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5UE_TlnfUfcJ:www.tentonhammer.com/columns/persistent-worlds/persistent-worlds-where-profession-developer-engagement+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au

Hehe, this works well for this thread since they were also discussing the issue.

Ohoh someone disappeared !

This is becoming way more entertaining than expected… ^^

Really? Wow, the entire article just vanished. I guess it must have struck a nerve. A really big nerve.

This is the part I do not get.

If it is such a big deal to ANet that they have to complain to TTH to have the article removed then looking bad in the eyes of the public means a lot to them.

If that is the case, why not just engage the Ranger community and let us know what is happening? It’s not the bugs so much as the total silence about them. Are they being fixed or do they not care? How could we know? Because saying nothing and behaving like this, censoring dissent as it were, makes them look far worse. It makes it look as if they have no intention of fixing bugs or issues at all and just want to sweep it under the rug. As well as that, they could just actually fix the problems that are crippling the class.

Surely they can see that if they make changes Ranger players want (within reason etc), then they are a lot better off in the long run than making changes they want and telling players to deal with it.

It may just be the case they are truly saving Druid for last because it will just blow us out of the water with how awesome it is, and 6 months ago I would have thought this, but slowly my hype and positive outlook has diminished because we have had zero interaction.

If it were me developing Ranger/Druid, I’d be on the forum daily checking in and relaying progress on bugs etc. Seriously if a dev did that it would just be amazing. I suspect they are not allowed to, otherwise at least one of them would be able to take a few minutes a day/week/month to talk to the community about what they like and dislike. Any class dev that did that would have their finger on the pulse and know exactly what needed to be done. Serious, 5 minutes a day would earn them god-like status within the community.

I’m starting to think that someone really needs to find a decent engine and start an open-source MMO with 90% of the content coming from the community and only employ devs to test and balance fan made content. I tell you it would be vastly better than anything any studio could put out and the devs would not have to worry about a majority of the work. They just need to host the game, charge players for the right to use and implement player created content, of which, there would be more made than anyone could play.

Who knows. Too many things in the background we know nothing about. I like to think they have a mobster type PR head that likes to use the censor and silence method. In turn, they can’t communicate with us because he doesn’t allow them to. They also can’t fire him because they fear for their safety and lives.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

This is the part I do not get.

If it is such a big deal to ANet that they have to complain to TTH to have the article removed then looking bad in the eyes of the public means a lot to them.

If that is the case, why not just engage the Ranger community and let us know what is happening? It’s not the bugs so much as the total silence about them. Are they being fixed or do they not care? How could we know? Because saying nothing and behaving like this, censoring dissent as it were, makes them look far worse. It makes it look as if they have no intention of fixing bugs or issues at all and just want to sweep it under the rug. As well as that, they could just actually fix the problems that are crippling the class.

Surely they can see that if they make changes Ranger players want (within reason etc), then they are a lot better off in the long run than making changes they want and telling players to deal with it.

It may just be the case they are truly saving Druid for last because it will just blow us out of the water with how awesome it is, and 6 months ago I would have thought this, but slowly my hype and positive outlook has diminished because we have had zero interaction.

If it were me developing Ranger/Druid, I’d be on the forum daily checking in and relaying progress on bugs etc. Seriously if a dev did that it would just be amazing. I suspect they are not allowed to, otherwise at least one of them would be able to take a few minutes a day/week/month to talk to the community about what they like and dislike. Any class dev that did that would have their finger on the pulse and know exactly what needed to be done. Serious, 5 minutes a day would earn them god-like status within the community.

I’m starting to think that someone really needs to find a decent engine and start an open-source MMO with 90% of the content coming from the community and only employ devs to test and balance fan made content. I tell you it would be vastly better than anything any studio could put out and the devs would not have to worry about a majority of the work. They just need to host the game, charge players for the right to use and implement player created content, of which, there would be more made than anyone could play.

It is possible they are listening and not speaking. I’m worried though that the reality is them being in a rush for release. Every time they have released a new spec the players freakout and spam the forums about how terrible it is. Something is going to give. I hope it’s the release date tbh.

As for mmo with player created content. We do see games (even older ones) that have strong community support. These are single player games though where you can choose the content you want and it affects no one else. With an mmo it would have to be for none or all to keep a fair playing field yes? All that would result in is too many cooks spoil the broth, the development team would have a fast turnover rate and it would ultimately fail.

After all this, can you guys imagine the amount of pressure over the Druid devs?
Druids needs to be amazing to quench the thirst of the rangers and boy we are thirst.

Here is the original:
Persistent Worlds: Where is the Profession Developer Engagement?

Nevermind. Anet had them take it down. I’ll probably get banned here for it. It’s over on reddit, if you haven’t read it. Or find the google cache version.

Belzebu.3912:

After all this, can you guys imagine the amount of pressure over the Druid devs?
Druids needs to be amazing to quench the thirst of the rangers and boy we are thirst.

And then it gets nerfed to abyss because it’s too amazing and we can take another 3 years to get anything done.

I`m rather disturbed by how this article has been silenced. Does Ten Ton Hammer have no backbone? Free speech clearly not important to them apparently.

I says ‘we detected a problem with the page you are trying to open’. Did Tentonhammer take it down?

Sorry guys…but am i wrong or TEN TON HAMMER cancelled that article?^

If yes…well..for sure someone put pressure on him…

chronometria.3708:

I`m rather disturbed by how this article has been silenced. Does Ten Ton Hammer have no backbone? Free speech clearly not important to them apparently.

They were pressured by Anet to take it down. They depend to some degree on Anet for inside information to drive traffic to their site. They could survive without it, but I’m pretty sure for a gaming site, burning a bridge with a somewhat popular developer isn’t the best business model.

The article was based around the BWE Druid Impressions forum thread that was also locked down (You were saying about free speech? TTH hates it? right.) and criticisms of Anet lodged by PLAYERS about the developers failing to address, even comment on, longstanding issues.

I’m not mad at TTH, I’m mad that Anet was aggressive in getting them to remove the article. Sure, they don’t want bad publicity while they’re targeting new players and preparing to launch HoT, but it was all based on their lack of engagement with the community. They could have taken note and started engaging better, shown that they’re responsive and well-intentioned – but alas, they harassed TTH to take it down instead.

And here, of course, people like you are blaming TTH. Mind boggling.

Darkness.9732:

Sorry guys…but am i wrong or TEN TON HAMMER cancelled that article?^

If yes…well..for sure someone put pressure on him…

Anet “asked” them to take it down.

islarose.7356:

Darkness.9732:

Sorry guys…but am i wrong or TEN TON HAMMER cancelled that article?^

If yes…well..for sure someone put pressure on him…

Anet “asked” them to take it down.

That is speculation. For all we know it could’ve been TTH on their own. Lets not jump to conclusions, shall we?

nagymbear.5280:

islarose.7356:

Darkness.9732:

Sorry guys…but am i wrong or TEN TON HAMMER cancelled that article?^

If yes…well..for sure someone put pressure on him…

Anet “asked” them to take it down.

That is speculation. For all we know it could’ve been TTH on their own. Lets not jump to conclusions, shall we?

That is my thoughts aswell. Someone higher up maybe didn’t realize how scathing it was until posted and said “um, are you stupid?”.

I think for Anet to pull that article so quickly it would’ve needed some serious legal consequences on TTH. I did not read anything of the sort tbh.

islarose.7356:

Darkness.9732:

Sorry guys…but am i wrong or TEN TON HAMMER cancelled that article?^

If yes…well..for sure someone put pressure on him…

Anet “asked” them to take it down.

I have no words…
Anet and rangers…everything confirmed then…

the thought of ANET asking them to remove the article disgusts me…

nagymbear.5280:

I think for Anet to pull that article so quickly it would’ve needed some serious legal consequences on TTH. I did not read anything of the sort tbh.

Not really. For all we know, all it took was a phone call or e-mail and it was pulled. Stuff gets pulled all the time for various reasons without details being released as to why, let alone being made officially public.

It could have been an internal decision on TTH, it could have been because of Anet, but I think everyone knows the true answer of why it was pulled.

I don’t think not liking criticism is grounds enough to pull such an article from a site like TTH. IF it was Anet pulling the strings at the very least they would’ve needed to argue that the article was biased. But it is possible I’m being naive here.

You guys do realize that you could just ask the people at TTH why they pulled the article? The worst they can tell you is “We don’t discuss this”.

What the heck is happening with #RangerGate? The editor pulled the article, probably for one of two reasons. The first is it didn’t meet their quality standards, the second is that ArenaNet made a phone call and politely requested it get pulled. They probably can’t handle bad press with HoT out next month

Responses from Persistent World on the REDDIT were (in order):

I’d really rather not discuss it. We chose to take it down and let’s leave it at that

I published it because I felt it had merit, that ArenaNet fail to engage with their community at a profession level, and that a discussion on it would be worthwhile. If other’s disagree that’s fine, but sometimes you have to weigh up the value of it remaining live over turning the node off. In all the years I’ve worked as a writer, I’ve only ever done it twice (this being the second time). That said, I’ve written about Guild Wars 2 for many, many years and 95% of all that I write is highly positive – of the 5% that’s negative, I feel all is fair and justified.

Unfortunately I’m not in charge and am only an employee. I don’t make those decisions and would very much like to remain employed. Yes we pulled the content but it’s very, very rare for that to happen.

As for this article, it’s actually party of a daily blog about Guild Wars 2, it’s not an editorial nor is it marked as such. I don’t feel anything in it was sensationalist:

I placed links where necessary. Pointed out a lack of communication from ArenaNet. Provided my own opinion on their communication.

That’s it – there’s not much more to it. People are fine to disagree and a handful did. But as a blog post, I’m not bound by editorial rules and as such, I’m free to write as I wish about any topic. I don’t believe it was overly hostile but it was to the point and importantly, why shouldn’t it be? Of all the content I write, a tiny proportion is negative and sometimes, so be it.

It wasn’t my decision to take it down, I’m just an employee

Can someone link the reddit thread?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3kf7bh/the_tth_article_on_profession_developer/

It’s also linked with the word “REDDIT” in the post above.

Puck.9612:

Can someone link the reddit thread?

Unless there’s a different REDDIT thread on the matter it’s been linked in the post right above yours

….please excuse me, I must now go apologize to some game developers for calling them the worst, most [* ] , most [* * ] absolutely [* * * ] pathetic game developers there are, who can’t even open a dialogue with their players when there’s a major issue like this. It appears I may be mistaken in calling Bungie and Activison that instead of Arenanet! Besides, I bet a post like this will get deleted before Anet gets their collective heads out of their collective [* * * * ] and actually says something to us.

[ * ]- Words I’m not allowed to say here but definitely want to, since we’re all red headed stepchildren in Anet’s eyes.

Eirh.1439:

You guys do realize that you could just ask the people at TTH why they pulled the article? The worst they can tell you is “We don’t discuss this”.

They did and that right there is all anyone really needs to see to know why it was taken down.

Like I said in the GD forum thread:

Substance E.4852:

MashMash.1645:

Behellagh.1468:

eisberg.2379:

CorrynnStarr.7942:

lordkrall.7241:

Seeing as the people working for the site refuses to actually tell people what happened, I would say we most likely don’t have the full story. Even when outright asked if they where forced to take it down they simply spun it around and refused to answer.

that gives you your answer right there… if they cannot be open and say what happened, then it is likely Anet forced them to remove it.

on second thought it could be the employee was fired for posting something he was directed not to….

Or maybe his editor thought it was a shoddy article and had it taken down and the original writer doesn’t want to talk about it because he is embarrassed or furious at his editor.

Many people, even the ones who agree with him on the general idea, felt the article was shoddy in many ways, and his editor could very well be someone who believes as such as well.

And it’s also possible he posted it before getting his editor’s approval. Maybe because it wasn’t clearly stated as his opinion piece.

His reddit responses seem to indicate he got read the riot act and can only say his editor took it down.

Wow. You are naive.

TTH get lots of access and exclusives, then one of thier writers posts a critical opinion piece, and it gets pulled. Hmmm.

It’s not hard to connect the dots. I’ll be interested if any other sites cover this. I bet they don’t.

Since when has any site ever posted anything negative about GW2? The worst I can remember are a few rather bemused, but cautiously optimistic, op-eds.

Stuff like the currently borked to kitten Mordrem event won’t even get a blip while the same sites will rip apart games for similar bugs.

Anyone who’s spent enough time in either industry will tell you this isn’t rare, though what isn’t said can often speak much louder than what is…

nagymbear.5280:

islarose.7356:

Darkness.9732:

Sorry guys…but am i wrong or TEN TON HAMMER cancelled that article?^

If yes…well..for sure someone put pressure on him…

Anet “asked” them to take it down.

That is speculation. For all we know it could’ve been TTH on their own. Lets not jump to conclusions, shall we?

It isn’t speculation on my part.

Eirh.1439:

You guys do realize that you could just ask the people at TTH why they pulled the article? The worst they can tell you is “We don’t discuss this”.

I did. I just don’t want to get them into more trouble.

islarose.7356:

nagymbear.5280:

islarose.7356:

Darkness.9732:

Sorry guys…but am i wrong or TEN TON HAMMER cancelled that article?^

If yes…well..for sure someone put pressure on him…

Anet “asked” them to take it down.

That is speculation. For all we know it could’ve been TTH on their own. Lets not jump to conclusions, shall we?

It isn’t speculation on my part.

Well, you either “know” what has happened from a source via Anet, or you “know” what happened via a source from TTH, or you are speculating. Even if your guess was right, it is just that, a guess.

@nagymbear

Does your name mean North American Gym Bear?

I like turtles

Druid hype since announcement. Nerfed spirits into oblivion. Still a weird outlier class. I don’t want to sound downer-ish, but if Druid isn’t overtuned it will be nothing but a bandaid on what is the most hurting class. Ele got a major overhaul back in the day. Ranger is over due.

Guys, who cares? They will release HoT with many promises they do not intent to keep and we will be back to the 2 balance patches per year cycle.

There are very real reasons as to why it is so but I am afraid that any mention of this would probably result in a ban. Quite honestly I am rooting for an engaging and bug less expansion, balance be kitten ed.

I’m pretty happy about being in this situation and not being able to play the expansion for two months after it is released actually, hopefully by then they will have the major bugs sorted.

That’ s why many of us are waiting before buying the expansion. Myself i only like ranger but right now it’ s too broken..so nothing for now.

Sagramor.7395:

Puck.9612:

Can someone link the reddit thread?

Unless there’s a different REDDIT thread on the matter it’s been linked in the post right above yours

Yup, I was posting from my phone and totally missed that lol.

I don’t have any information on it and this will be pure speculation:

ANet got criticized by somebody who had something constructive to say about their practices that was more than the pay-it-foward circle stroke they normally receive, and the higher ups of TTH got worried that because of not saying nice things, somebody said real things, so they had the article pulled so they can still be in the running for exclusive information access and early reveal article rights.

Because why hold devs to a respectable standard and pay for a job well done when you can cup their juevos for them and throw money at the screen as they continue to do a poor job?

jcbroe.4329:

I don’t have any information on it and this will be pure speculation:

ANet got criticized by somebody who had something constructive to say about their practices that was more than the pay-it-foward circle stroke they normally receive, and the higher ups of TTH got worried that because of not saying nice things, somebody said real things, so they had the article pulled so they can still be in the running for exclusive information access and early reveal article rights.

Because why hold devs to a respectable standard and pay for a job well done when you can cup their juevos for them and throw money at the screen as they continue to do a poor job?

You forget the part where 2 weeks before the same writer praised Anet for their communication with the player base.