Guild Wars 2

Doesn’t GW2 promote bad behavior by allowing emotes in WvW that people utilize for taunting… which ends up pushing people to the forums to vent their frustration?

it’s like the arsonist standing in front of the 20th building that he’s burnt down, turning to the firemen and going “guys, can we have a serious, mature discussion about fire safety?”

GrandmaFunk.3052:

it’s like the arsonist standing in front of the 20th building that he’s burnt down, turning to the firemen and going “guys, can we have a serious, mature discussion about fire safety?”

Hmm no.
It is more like I have commented on how bad your hotel is when compared to mine, and you’ve burnt mine down in response setting your own alight in the process. But since my hotel set yours on fire, you have claimed money off my insurance making it out as if it was my fault.

Threads do not get locked and posts do not get infracted because of a single person. It takes people reporting them to do it.
Now I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’ve never reported anyone, but I could have reported your post with the message, “Trolling, calls me an arsonist and is trying to derail the thread”. This would have gotten your post deleted and possibly infracted. Now I know that wasn’t your intent, but you can see how youre impressing your opinion onto the report post, making it out as if its something that it is not.
From the way you act, I believe you have more than likely done this more than once to one of my own posts and impressed a negative opinion onto it. I don’t mean any offense of course, I’m just speculating.

You know what they can do, have a monthly wiping of all threads; so the memory holding the information has a clean slate – thus little to know upkeep yeah?

What will I read during class? My textbooks? :’(

I don’t like when people report people just because they don’t like or agree with them. Seen/been victim to that too much.

clint.5681:

I don’t like when people report people just because they don’t like or agree with them. Seen/been victim to that too much.

I’ve gotten reported for just being in the guild TW. I’ve had individuals brag to me that they reported my posts and put “In the guild TW” in the reason and I was infracted for it.

That’s when I realized I was in the right guild. Just being in the guild insults some people.

styx.7294:

Vena.8436:

Easterbunny.6170:

And the fact that this is normal is part of what makes this heavy handed move by the corporation responsible for this content reverberate. My understanding was that this development team was old school. The same one that developed my personal favorite game of all time, DAOC. They should realize that all of this is normal. This “We are going to take away your toys” Move by them reeks of a new team with no experience. That worries me quite a lot.

This has been a corporate trend lately.

You can’t even smack talk on XBLive anymore without being banned because if you happen to hurt some 12 y-olds feelings and they tell their mom, you’ll get reported and temp-banned.

That’s not a bad thing.

It is a very bad thing.

Burl.9567:

clint.5681:

I don’t like when people report people just because they don’t like or agree with them. Seen/been victim to that too much.

I’ve gotten reported for just being in the guild TW. I’ve had individuals brag to me that they reported my posts and put “In the guild TW” in the reason and I was infracted for it.

That’s when I realized I was in the right guild. Just being in the guild insults some people.

Reported for claiming to be in TW with out it being in your signature for proof!

aspirine.6852:

styx.7294:

Vena.8436:

Easterbunny.6170:

And the fact that this is normal is part of what makes this heavy handed move by the corporation responsible for this content reverberate. My understanding was that this development team was old school. The same one that developed my personal favorite game of all time, DAOC. They should realize that all of this is normal. This “We are going to take away your toys” Move by them reeks of a new team with no experience. That worries me quite a lot.

This has been a corporate trend lately.

You can’t even smack talk on XBLive anymore without being banned because if you happen to hurt some 12 y-olds feelings and they tell their mom, you’ll get reported and temp-banned.

That’s not a bad thing.

It is a very bad thing.

Yea, that really stinks. Good bye competition, working for something, and challenge. Hello politically correct everyone is a winner socialist empire. Flying spaghetti monster help us.

(I’m reaching here obviously, come on guys)

Its a bad call to remove them, at least now they have the threads contained. Once its gone, these threads are going to still be here, maybe not traditionally but servers will still find a way to discuss the match. If match up threads get moved to reddit or a fan site, the amount of trolling and flame wars that will go on will be more hurtful to the game mode, they won’t be able to control it at all.

I think this is just going to back fire on anet.

Malediktus.9250:

Looks like Anet took the easiest solution to a problem. As always.

Then they’re seeing a problem where there isn’t any. Some competitive chat between opponents is not a big deal. Mud may sometimes be thrown or it may just be interpreted as being thrown. Either way, I don’t see how this could be taken a big deal and it’s certainly not special to GW2. In a competitive/pvp environment it’s normal to facilitate chat between both your own side and the other sides. The unusual thing would be to take away the official capacity for such discussions.

The real reason is probably cost cutting, as mentioned earlier. Cutting down on forum discussions means less moderators since forums don’t directly bring in any money.

Some of you guys seem to think that reporting is some sort of magical voodoo.

Reports merely gets the moderator’s attention. The moderators decide if you broke the rules. If you don’t break the rules, people can report you all they want, and nothing will happen.

Sometimes, people get infracted without any reports.
Sometimes, posts get deleted after only one report.
Sometimes, posts get reported constantly, with no consequence to the poster because they did not break the rules.
Sometimes, people report someone else, and end up getting infracted themselves because their own post broke the rules.

Infractions are because of rule breaking, not because of reports.

Zephyrus.9680:

Malediktus.9250:

Looks like Anet took the easiest solution to a problem. As always.

Then they’re seeing a problem where there isn’t any. Some competitive chat between opponents is not a big deal. Mud may sometimes be thrown or it may just be interpreted as being thrown. Either way, I don’t see how this could be taken a big deal and it’s certainly not special to GW2. In a competitive/pvp environment it’s normal to facilitate chat between both your own side and the other sides. The unusual thing would be to take away the official capacity for such discussions.

Had you actually been an active user of the match-up forums you would however have been fully aware that it is not just “some competitive chat between opponents”.
It is flat-out abuse in almost every thread.
I don’t think anyone have any issues with some competitive chat. But when every week requires loads of removed posts and even locked threads in most cases, there is clearly an issue.

titanlectro.5029:

Some of you guys seem to think that reporting is some sort of magical voodoo.

Reports merely gets the moderator’s attention. The moderators decide if you broke the rules. If you don’t break the rules, people can report you all they want, and nothing will happen.

Sometimes, people get infracted without any reports.
Sometimes, posts get deleted after only one report.
Sometimes, posts get reported constantly, with no consequence to the poster because they did not break the rules.
Sometimes, people report someone else, and end up getting infracted themselves because their own post broke the rules.

Infractions are because of rule breaking, not because of reports.

We all know how moderation really works around here, no need to white knight.

lordkrall.7241:

Had you actually been an active user of the match-up forums you would however have been fully aware that it is not just “some competitive chat between opponents”.
It is flat-out abuse in almost every thread.
I don’t think anyone have any issues with some competitive chat. But when every week requires loads of removed posts and even locked threads in most cases, there is clearly an issue.

You act like ANET is blameless in this.

Had you actually been an active user of the forums in general you would have been fully aware that erroneous infractions are given out add hock on a daily basis in response to anyone that can think of a far fetched reason to hit the report tool.

The forums could get an an ignore/block user feature for the forums, like has been asked for many times and ANET never bothered to do. This way you could ignore people that push your buttons.

The in-game reporting tool could be added an option for exploits and hacking, reduce those kinds of threads on the forums. Took them no time to add it for LFG System Abuse, but not for WvW.

Instead of locking down in game chat they could have made it available for those of us that want it, once again removing many discussions off the forums. Obviously you need ways to opt-out for those not interested in that type of interaction, but that would take planning and effort.

So many things could be done, but instead we get the typical ANET least amount of effort for WvW response.

titanlectro.5029:

Infractions are because of rule breaking, not because of reports.

You are naive. While there is no question that moderators catch their own violations, the vast majority of their actions are an over-response to reports, no matter how vague and silly the report reason is.

Play with it some time. I did a bunch of tests, reporting the silliest things, almost all were removed.

The real problem is how over-moderated the forums are compared to, say, other competitive game’s forums. Moderators should not even be looking at the forums unless a post is reported by multiple players. There’s so many pointless infractions. Technically even using too much punctuation or ‘leet speek’ among other things. Probably even discussing this is against the code of conduct.

There’s an infractions thread on Maguuma’s forums and some are legit but it’s alot of infractions that seem to be misinterpreting what was meant, or for something completely benign or not even remotely offensive, implying the work is outsourced to non-native English speakers. Maguuma is supposedly the king of PvF but some of these things are just stupid.

They could do a lot more (or at least a lot better) with a lot less if they took their hands off things and only intervened on posts players have a genuine problem with. It’s like the Community Coordinator’s post is from an overprotective Christian mother and we’re all supposed to be 5 years old. (And no, that’s not to be misinterpreted as any form of hate speech).

Rob: I guess I’m just having trouble reconciling “the guy complaining about the matchup forum getting locked” with “the guy that took pride in how quickly the matchup thread got locked every week, and that would complain about ppl needing to step up their ‘game’ because it was Wednesday and the first thread hadn’t been locked yet”.

your OP doesn’t feel genuine at all to me because it’s 100% contradictory to your own behaviour in those threads for the last year.

Whoa I just read this. So no more wvw on the guild wars website? Wow. Just….wow. GG anet.

munkiman.3068:

Super Kruegs.8967:

So you create a broken game mode with massive population imbalances. Then you take away pretty much the only way to get fair fights in this broken game mode. The forums are great for setting up fights weather those fights are duels or GvG or open field encounters. This forum helped players semi fix this imbalance on their own by setting up their own fights. A competitive game-mode will create trash talk and rivalry which is good for this game. The best players will want to be the best by fighting the best. Anet just made this way more difficult. Why not as mentioned many many times make it 18+ with a fat disclaimer and let people go at it. If people want to care bear they don’t need to come here. I love when a guild/person smack talks on another server it gives us something to go after in-game when the match up is already over. I’ve made friends on other servers out of respect after we’ve had it out on these forums and in-game. I know for example i don’t like TC because of who they are as a community, and i only know that cause of these forums. But i have respect for certain people as they’ve stepped up to a challenge and proved they are a worthy opponent. It gives servers identities. TC is role players, Mag is the trolls, SOS and IOJ have great Aussie communities, FA likes to scrap and trash talk. It gave the game more depth and meaning as PPT is clearly no indication of skill only coverage. It let people fight out their differences and to get better. Two thumbs down for this move.

My biggest problem with this first bit here “So you create a broken game mode with massive population imbalances.” IS:

I’d much rather read a bunch of crazy ideas about the fix for this than use it as an excuse to keep the match-up thread going. Also, broken is a pretty harsh term, there are far less broken bits to wvw than pretty much anywhere else in the game, this is IMO, it’s not like i’ve counted them and made graphs. But, it definitely feels that way.

I just can’t see a fix for population imbalances that won’t get exploited or end up making things worse. I think the hope is that they would have balanced out over time, but that’s obviously not happening.

It’s the most broken ignored part of the game. PvP was worshiped from the beginning as an attempted E-sport and PVE gets new content every 2 weeks. The server populations are IMO more unbalanced than ever. The tiers are so far apart it’s not a even funny. Anet has done nothing to create more balanced match ups all while there’s been many suggestions on how to do that on this forum. Hacks in almost every match, how long have people been complaining about thieves and mesmers hacking into towers? A clear loot/gold disparity between the PvP modes PVE. Same BL and EBG map for 18 months. Hammer train/heavy meta only getting stronger while other classes like Ranger are literally a joke. Can’t kick people from party, can’t add people to party who are outside of W3 without typing their name out. I could go on, but I’ll spare you the wall of text.

Lets just take this to a subreddit. Does one exist or does it need creating?

lordkrall.7241:

Zephyrus.9680:

Malediktus.9250:

Looks like Anet took the easiest solution to a problem. As always.

Then they’re seeing a problem where there isn’t any. Some competitive chat between opponents is not a big deal. Mud may sometimes be thrown or it may just be interpreted as being thrown. Either way, I don’t see how this could be taken a big deal and it’s certainly not special to GW2. In a competitive/pvp environment it’s normal to facilitate chat between both your own side and the other sides. The unusual thing would be to take away the official capacity for such discussions.

Had you actually been an active user of the match-up forums you would however have been fully aware that it is not just “some competitive chat between opponents”.
It is flat-out abuse in almost every thread.
I don’t think anyone have any issues with some competitive chat. But when every week requires loads of removed posts and even locked threads in most cases, there is clearly an issue.

Abuse in what sense? Of the CoC? Because that’s a joke. Improper grammar or Capitalizing wrong is abuse of that.

1. This is the internet.
2. It’s a PvP game mode meaning competitive with sides.

I see something seriously wrong with the idea that every post that could possibly bruise an ego needs to be removed. Because depending on how sensitive you are, that could be almost every post.

No, abuse in as actively attacking other players personally instead of keeping it on a sensible level and against servers rather than people.

I think moving the forums elsewhere is a good idea. Anet is living in a different world then it’s player base. That post they made is just over the top politically correct double talk. What they are really saying is they want to get rid of any post that might possibly offend. Why they can’t just be honest and straight forward about what they really want is insulting to me as a player.

IMO the lack of certain forum tools such as being able to block specific posters is intentional. They want to maintain control, not give control to the players. Obviously that did not work, and to add insult to injury they blame the players instead of their own failed way of handling the whole thing.

This could have ended differently, and it’s entirely on the heads of the Anet community team. They should take responsibility here and not just blame it on the player base.

lordkrall.7241:

No, abuse in as actively attacking other players personally instead of keeping it on a sensible level and against servers rather than people.

Which I have not seen very much of. 90% of WvW matchup subforum is 2 guilds having a competitive chat talking each other up, and usually when one beats the other, most of the time, they congratulate each other on a hard fight. Are there exceptions? Of course. Are there going to be trolls? Of course.

I’d rather them leave it completely unmoderated than talk to me like I’m 6 and the players are the problem. Especially when no one here is really complaining but Anet imo.

The match up threads are the best part of the WvW forums. Sure, there is smack talk and sure there are a few trolls. There are also a lot of great conversations in there too.

Instead of making the wrong decision ANET, why don’t you instead roll out new forum technologies. Allow people to bury comments. If a poster has too many negatives, they can’t post for a period of time. That will be a way better idea than deleting the forums.

This is good because now I’ll get more done at work.

Super Kruegs.8967:

It’s the most broken ignored part of the game. PvP was worshiped from the beginning as an attempted E-sport and PVE gets new content every 2 weeks. The server populations are IMO more unbalanced than ever. The tiers are so far apart it’s not a even funny. Anet has done nothing to create more balanced match ups all while there’s been many suggestions on how to do that on this forum. Hacks in almost every match, how long have people been complaining about thieves and mesmers hacking into towers? A clear loot/gold disparity between the PvP modes PVE. Same BL and EBG map for 18 months. Hammer train/heavy meta only getting stronger while other classes like Ranger are literally a joke. Can’t kick people from party, can’t add people to party who are outside of W3 without typing their name out. I could go on, but I’ll spare you the wall of text.

Right i agree. It really doesn’t fit in as a good excuse of tossing the section partly because of the “reports of hacking, exploits” that’s the bit that bugs me the most about the whole thing. I think most people get they work hard at this game, but people are going to QQ…

There are some serious technical limitations to the way wvw is designed and even so far as how servers themselves are designed, but i’m not sure how that’s the players fault? If there was a way they could implement a guild transfer token that moved the guild and influence to another server, that might be a start. Right now, moving a guild is painful.

They should really be addressing those concerns in CDI’s instead of stuff that they want to enhance about player progression (not just from a wvw standpoint either). For what my 2 cents is worth anyway. However i guess i realize it’s a really big thing to try and fix in a live game, so it stays unbalanced with problems that stem as far as simple party invites.

I don’t know, lately the judgment seems a bit off.

What did we all really expect from this “entity”?

I use the word entity, not company.

@ANet – Rule #1 – Don’t let customer service department rule your revenue streams. So many MMO examples of why this is a highly questionable idea. So when your forum audience usage and unique visitors numbers drops by XX% … well … you know what that means – see Rule #1.

We’re told that WvW is not supposed to be fair and that it’s meant to be competitive; but then we aren’t allowed to talk about it?

This isn’t Fight Club.

I think it was a great decision to kill it off. Almost the entire point of the threads was to bash one another and troll. They served almost no constructive purpose at all. I think the community as a whole will benefit from their absence.

“Trolling” has been around forever in competitive matches. Even Arnold trolled everyone before going on stage.

Anet, please listen to this fact:

It is much better for players to trash talk each other on this forum, than they private message trash talk each other in the game or on each other’s TeamSpeak. The “toxic” that you talked about on this forum are nothing compared to PMs. You got to allow room for players to let off their steams a bit sometimes.

style.6173:

…there is smack talk and sure there are a few trolls.

The problem is that it wasn’t a bit of smack talk and a few trolls. It was almost ENTIRELY smack talk and trolling. Constructive and friendly posts were/are few and far between. I’d bet the vast majority of bannings across these forums came directly out of those threads.

Hickeroar.9734:

style.6173:

…there is smack talk and sure there are a few trolls.

The problem is that it wasn’t a bit of smack talk and a few trolls. It was almost ENTIRELY smack talk and trolling. Constructive and friendly posts were/are few and far between. I’d bet the vast majority of bannings across these forums came directly out of those threads.

Hockey players trash talk each other throughout the whole game. But right after the game they would sometimes go have a burger and drink together and laugh it off.

Trash talking is part of the game. No one takes it seriously and no one actually hate each other. If some people do, well they shouldn’kittens a game.

There is a rather major difference between “friendly” trash-talk and outright abuse however.
In many cases the threads on the forums have gotten way more into outright abuse rather than “friendly” trash-talk.

Good move.

The wvw community is extremly self-destructive. The threads are only one example of it. Another is the focus on blobbing to even larger numbers just because it’s easy and works for the points. Even guilds have grown to larger numbers, just to stay competetiv. And if a server isn’t strong for 24h a day, it sucks. People talk bs about that it’s dead and so on.

(Guess my comments were in the … wrong thread. Guess I’ll just clone my post. )

Why am I not surprised by this turn of events? Hmmm, it could be due to the fact that we’ve been rather pidgeonholed into the closest thing I’ve (MMO-wise, with my experience thereof … YMMV) encountered which represents a “G” rated forum.
Here’s the issue that the Mods aren’t noticing. Yes, there is a fair amount of griefing, trolls, and (virtual) tears here. However, you have a forum subsector that focuses, as it were, upon a virtualised WAR. With all due respect, gents and ladies:

1. A simulated war is going to run emotions high. Competition breeds extremes of emotion. We all know this.
2. Also realise that for every thing you guys have an issue with, there is also an equal thread/post that promotes “decent” behaviour.
3. And the most important aspect: Honestly, what competitive online game does NOT come with a degree of “smacktalk?” Heck, if you get your company’s wish of PvP being the next big “E-Sport,” do you honestly think you won’t see far worse forumwarrioring? And, no, I’m not just saying this to be rude, but merely as an honest observation.

Eh. I called this kind of thing months ago, when I mentioned that the current cultural obsession with being “PC” is weakening us on a fundamental level. It used to be, folk
in competitive endeavours expected a certain amount of personality friction. Now, we’re rather down to the point where we have to worry that someone might get their feelings hurt. Meh. What ever happened to the old concept that “Adversity Breeds Character?” Or does this concept only apply to the “Real” world?

I’m not sorry to see this change. The match up forum stopped serving its original purpose. The conversations were repetitious or unnecessarily mean-spirited, often both. I feel that they did too much harm to the overall gameplay.

I do hope that ANet brings back this forum (with renewed moderation) when Season 2 rolls around, but until then, I support the removal of the match up forum.

Here’s what I saw:

1. At best, trash talk posts overwhelmed any sort of constructive discussions.
2. At second best, when there was “respectful” trash talk (by which I mean nothing personal), it quickly devolved into conversational empty back and forths, e.g. “no, your server is bad — no, no it’s your server that’s bad.”
3. At worst, a few individual posters successfully trolled others into angry diatribes that became unpleasant to read.
4. At worst, the vitriol spilled off the official forums and into guild or server forums. On the forum of my WvW guild, people got into heated arguments about whether we should let one of our opponents make false claims about our server or just let it go. While it’s true that was our issue not ANet’s, nor that of anyone posting here, it wouldn’t have happened if the official forums hadn’t established an environment that catalyzed animosity.

Should ANet have done something different? Promoted posts that showed mutual respect and hid/deleted posts that didn’t? They tried that and people accused them of censorship or of stifling conversation.

Some above say that trash talking is part of the game. True enough. Some say that no one actually takes it seriously and no one actually hates each other, but that clearly wasn’t true in the match-up forum. It’s just a game and people shouldn’t take it that seriously, but it’s naive to pretend that people’s feelings are always logical.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

No one is forced to go to the match up threads.

Anet: makes a collaborative development thread.

Closes forum.

Can someone make a scumbag Steve meme of this please?

Let me tell you something you already know.The match-up thread ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will troll you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna post as hard as forum-warriors. But it ain’t about how hard you troll, it’s about how hard you can get trolled and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!

Maybe anet could give some in game titles to players who trolled most.

Great idea, instead of some type of communication outside of “chat” in game, there’s nothing to create a server community from ANet. It wouldn’t be too difficult to make server forums and only give people in those servers the ability to post in them.

Thanks for introducing the community at large to other venues that will fill the void. I’m sure that giving up complete control of these threads will greatly improve the perception players have of WvW and the community in general.

Words are way too powerful. They rend at people’s emotions, they corrupt the minds of the innocent, they hurt the overinflated egos of the self righteous.

Response?

Nerf words!

JobCreator.1956:

Words are way too powerful. They rend at people’s emotions, they corrupt the minds of the innocent, they hurt the overinflated egos of the self righteous.

Response?

Nerf words!

Yes, every word should just be turned into ‘kitten’ that why no one gets their feelings hurt….. also it will look like everyone just loves cats.

LOL, talk about punishing the whole class if a few students do something wrong.

Why in the world would Anet want to intentionally drive traffic away from the forum? Talk about trying to put a nail in the coffin of making it look like people play a game. I don’t think I have ever heard of any game developer intentionally pushing a complete official game type community away from the official game forum…