Guild Wars 2

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Would you like us to discuss Population Imbalance again and then follow with Commander functionality?

I would like to know / feel that the discussions of the pop imbalance thread are not just useless venting, but that some kind of action is going to be taken… If the only point of CDI is discussing, and nothing is actually being done… It’s a loss of time both for the players who give ideas and for the devs who are reading through it all.

We need some feedback on the previous CDI before we start another one on the same topic. We need to know what might be possible and what is off limit.

Example, people mentioned that transfers should be calculated according to WvW population, instead of PvE, since PvE is not necessarily on the home world, thus people transfer mainly for WvW.
People also mentioned graphics about queue times being published in the past, so that people can know how long they can expect to wait for a given map on a given time.
It has been mentioned that servers should be made international.
It has been mentioned that people from stacked server should get free transfers to needing servers
Some mentioned servers less active in WvW shouldn’t get less bonus, but more, so that people are more likely to select these low WvW activity servers…
Some of these ideas were just mentionned, some were discussed in lenght amongst the players, but all we heard was “this idea is off the table” not “that idea is interesting”, nor, “as is, this idea cannot be applied, we might tweak it this or that way, so that it might work, what do you think?”
This leaves us people who care about population imbalance with a bitter taste in the mouth – nothing we say is considered, it’s just “swept under the rug”.

So, before deciding whether yet another population imbalance CDI must be made, we need to know if it is useful…

(By the way, thanks for your presence here and now – but if multiple CDI threads are launched at the same time, the input you can give on one subject is going to be limited – And there is just not enough WvW Devs to ensure their activity – and they obviously just take part in it because they were told to. I’d rather have one discussion per week that is fulfilling, than three that leaves one unanswered)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Would you like us to discuss Population Imbalance again and then follow with Commander functionality?

…

CDI is not an exercise in trying to placate the community by having a place where they can vent at Devs. If it were to become this i would shut down the initiative.

It is instead an exercise in education on both sides and then evolution of design philosophy with the goal of making Guild Wars 2 the very best online world it can be.

Given those two comments, here’s my two pence. First, a bit of a CDI tangent.

I strongly believe that the biggest improvement that can be made to CDI is if ANet approaches every single discussion with a firm answer to the question “what do we need to learn.” In order to avoid becoming mass placation methods, these discussions must feed information into development which feeds into the game. In that spirit, what is more important to developers?

Do you need more information regarding season one rewards and population imbalance? (If so, I’d strongly recommend getting that information as soon as possible). Are you looking for imbalance information as you prepare for a second season? (Maybe you want to wait for this one to finish before getting the information). Are you looking for imbalance issues just to help gameplay in general? Is the WvW team starting a redesign on commanders that would benefit from the discussion in the immediate future? Which is needed more? Or are they just getting noted for our children’s children (aka TBD)?

It’s good to ask us to choose the topic if you’ve decided that “we need to learn what is most important to players.” Then you can use that to adjust your priority list. Beyond that, it is far superior to determine what information you actually need. So, I’d say go ask the WvW team what we should talk about next. Hopefully it will be of use to them and we’ll see improvements for it.

I don’t think we need to discuss imbalance anymore at this point. Myself and a large amount of forum post agree that a lot of good ideas were givin on ways to solve it. I thinkmore the reason it keeps coming up is people were unsatisfied with the lack of dev interaction.

Valik Shin.9027:

I don’t think we need to discuss imbalance anymore at this point. Myself and a large amount of forum post agree that a lot of good ideas were givin on ways to solve it. I thinkmore the reason it keeps coming up is people were unsatisfied with the lack of dev interaction.

i disagree population imbalance is the number one problem and deserves a serious discussion. I completely agree that the player showed up with great ideas but the discussion was hampered by failure to show up on anet’s part. We absolutely should revisit the topic now that anet will show up and the discussion will be much more helpful and focused with constructive anet presence.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Sounds like we want devs to pick topics based on a short vote during the CDI process evolution phase.

I vote at this time that we discuss Commander functionality next as it also impacts PVE. This topic however would be discussed in the WvW forums.

Regarding your question Cactus i will ask DC to do a summary of valuable points garnered from the discussion. He is however away for the holiday so we should be patient in that regard in terms of a reply.

Chris

It has now been a week. If the DC is still on holiday, why start a new CDI then? If he is super busy, fine. Just letting you know, I and quite a few others, are awaiting this response to the first CDI as we have yet found any response of what has a feint possibility of being something that maybe can be done in some future.

If this is attempted in any way to be swept under the rug, count me out of the forum and the game.

I will await more patiently, just remember we do not have a patience forever.

Chris, I dont know if this is the right place to post this but its the best I could find, which in itself is relevant to the suggestion I would like to make.

It seems that CDI does not have a home, so to speak, but is spread out across the various forums the different threads are related to. This makes sense, but for someone who doesn’t visit the forums everyday its quite difficult and time consuming to find where the various threads are.

I would suggest a stickied post in the suggestions forum listing all the CDI threads, current and completed, in chronological order and with a short paragraph describing the purpose and contents of each.

This would allow participants very convenient access to any topic they might want to contribute too or read up on without requiring you to move any existing threads or reorganize anything else on the forums. It might also help people to grasp the big picture of CDI, which might help them appreciate what you are trying to achieve with it, something that is hard to see if you only see one or two threads every now and then.

Webba.3071:

It seems that CDI does not have a home, so to speak, but is spread out across the various forums the different threads are related to. This makes sense, but for someone who doesn’t visit the forums everyday its quite difficult and time consuming to find where the various threads are.

I generally find them/stay current by browsing through the Dev tracker .

I would suggest a stickied post in the suggestions forum listing all the CDI threads, current and completed, in chronological order and with a short paragraph describing the purpose and contents of each.

This would allow participants very convenient access to any topic they might want to contribute too or read up on without requiring you to move any existing threads or reorganize anything else on the forums. It might also help people to grasp the big picture of CDI, which might help them appreciate what you are trying to achieve with it, something that is hard to see if you only see one or two threads every now and then.

This is actually pretty elegant.

The current commander thread appears to be going pretty much the same way as the previous thread on population.

Its a bit better than the first time around , but I don’t think I’d call it “good”.

I saw a comment in one post in the Commander CDI thread that implied ANet was considering a reboot of the Population Imbalance CDI since it was pretty much a failure the first time around (even though it was the #1 requested WvW topic by players). Any truth to that?

Cactus.2710:

I saw a comment in one post in the Commander CDI thread that implied ANet was considering a reboot of the Population Imbalance CDI since it was pretty much a failure the first time around (even though it was the #1 requested WvW topic by players). Any truth to that?

That was Chris Whiteside, and as he seems to be in charge of the CDI I’m thinking if he says it he has the power to swing it. They may change their mind between now and then and the WvW might go on break for a rotation the way PvE is right now, but I think your odds are pretty good for getting a second crack at it.

Though personally if its going to be more “here’s what the consensus/mob rule think” summaries without one word of actual interaction with the people trying to put forward ideas I don’t see a lot of reason to bother. They could just run a survey and figure that sort of thing out 30 times faster.

Nike.2631:

Cactus.2710:

I saw a comment in one post in the Commander CDI thread that implied ANet was considering a reboot of the Population Imbalance CDI since it was pretty much a failure the first time around (even though it was the #1 requested WvW topic by players). Any truth to that?

That was Chris Whiteside, and as he seems to be in charge of the CDI I’m thinking if he says it he has the power to swing it. They may change their mind between now and then and the WvW might go on break for a rotation the way PvE is right now, but I think your odds are pretty good for getting a second crack at it.

Though personally if its going to be more “here’s what the consensus/mob rule think” summaries without one word of actual interaction with the people trying to put forward ideas I don’t see a lot of reason to bother. They could just run a survey and figure that sort of thing out 30 times faster.

Hopefully we will indeed get another crack at it, but I have the exact same reservation that you do. I keep harping on the fact that collaborative development isn’t collaborative if only one side is actively participating as has been mostly the case for WvW. And in the case of the commander CDI, I’ve seen FAR FAR better summaries from two or three of the players (maybe even from you, since I’ve seen you being pretty active there) than I have from any dev.

TheTitan.4931:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Sounds like we want devs to pick topics based on a short vote during the CDI process evolution phase.

I vote at this time that we discuss Commander functionality next as it also impacts PVE. This topic however would be discussed in the WvW forums.

Regarding your question Cactus i will ask DC to do a summary of valuable points garnered from the discussion. He is however away for the holiday so we should be patient in that regard in terms of a reply.

Chris

It has now been a week. If the DC is still on holiday, why start a new CDI then? If he is super busy, fine. Just letting you know, I and quite a few others, are awaiting this response to the first CDI as we have yet found any response of what has a feint possibility of being something that maybe can be done in some future.

If this is attempted in any way to be swept under the rug, count me out of the forum and the game.

I will await more patiently, just remember we do not have a patience forever.

It is now a month later, and I can not find this quote “I will ask DC to do a summary of valuable points garnered from the discussion.” to have been actually made anywhere on the forum.

To me, this means you wanted this swept under the rug and not see the light of day again.

Count me as a player out of this game for the most foreseeable time of the future if this is how you treat your loyal users.

TheTitan.4931:

TheTitan.4931:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Sounds like we want devs to pick topics based on a short vote during the CDI process evolution phase.

I vote at this time that we discuss Commander functionality next as it also impacts PVE. This topic however would be discussed in the WvW forums.

Regarding your question Cactus i will ask DC to do a summary of valuable points garnered from the discussion. He is however away for the holiday so we should be patient in that regard in terms of a reply.

Chris

It has now been a week. If the DC is still on holiday, why start a new CDI then? If he is super busy, fine. Just letting you know, I and quite a few others, are awaiting this response to the first CDI as we have yet found any response of what has a feint possibility of being something that maybe can be done in some future.

If this is attempted in any way to be swept under the rug, count me out of the forum and the game.

I will await more patiently, just remember we do not have a patience forever.

It is now a month later, and I can not find this quote “I will ask DC to do a summary of valuable points garnered from the discussion.” to have been actually made anywhere on the forum.

To me, this means you wanted this swept under the rug and not see the light of day again.

Count me as a player out of this game for the most foreseeable time of the future if this is how you treat your loyal users.

Population imbalance was by far the number one requested topic for “collaborative development”, but Devon had zero interest in it and quite obviously nothing will ever come from it. We didn’t even get the summary we were promised.

For that matter, all we can possibly expect to get from the Commander CDI is maybe some different colors for the commander tags.

This entire initiative, at least for WvW, has been some kind of cynical attempt at temporary appeasement and I can’t imagine that it won’t ultimately backfire on ANet.