Guild Wars 2

Hi everybody! Chris is encouraging a new era of developer/player interaction which I’m pretty excited about. So I’ll add my 2 cents to this thread. I don’t speak for all devs, but here’s what I personally would find most helpful…

Josh Foreman’s Tips for Constructive Feedback:

1. It’s most helpful if you state your request or actionable item at the top. Then your reasons below. This helps us find and reference your post, pass it around for discussion, etc.

2. Don’t assume the reason that things are the way they are due to developer incompetence, laziness, apathy, stubbornness, greed, selfishness, lust or any of the other deadly sins. There are other possibilities beside developer personal defects. “Just” changing one thing usually has ramifications on other things that are hard to anticipate. An MMO is an incredibly complex web of interdependencies, and tweaking any individual part runs the risk of breaking many other parts. That’s why we don’t typically jump to instant ‘fixes’ (even though it’s tempting!) and why things that seem like obvious problems can take a lot longer to address than many would intuitively think they should. There is no MAKE IT WORK button that we refuse to push out of spite. Even if that were the case, it just doesn’t make sense to insult the party you are requesting something from. In what part of the real world does that ever work? No one wants to ‘slap you in the face’ or make the game less fun. We love you guys, and are thrilled that people play our game!

3. Don’t assume that we can just rearrange resources to work on your particular issue. Most of our teams are very specialized. It takes a long time to build the experience necessary to be a good productive member of the PvP, Story, Systems, or any other team. Just because we have X programmers working on bug fixes and Y working on Gameplay improvements, doesn’t mean we can arbitrarily move those numbers around. It’s just not that simple.

4. Please stop calling us liars when we fail to implement something we intended to months ago, but for some technical, balance, or other reason found it to be untenable. We can’t be very open about our plans if every word we say is taken as a contractual obligation. Imagine if every word you said to your friends were recorded and played back at the most inopportune time in order to make you look like a fool. You’d probably clam up pretty quickly. Making an MMO, especially one as experimental as GW2 requires… experimenting. Requires making plans, following through, finding dead ends, back-tracking and trying something else. Sometimes that means that we will state a clear goal, test it internally and find out it just won’t work. The idea that this means we don’t have a clear vision is wrong. There is a difference between a core vision for our design principles, and the implementation of specific systems. We are very clear about the mountain we want to scale, but whether we do it in 4×4, on foot, with a grappling hook, or a hot air balloon are all contingent on the terrain we discover as we progress.

5. You are not “all players”. Please stop saying “Players want X” just because you want X. The fact is that players want X, Y, Z, and the rest of the alphabet, and most of those desires conflict with each other. And I guarantee you, anything that the vast majority of the players want, we (as players of our own game) also want. If you don’t understand why something the vast majority of players and the devs want is not implemented, see the above points 2-4. I have a people-pleaser mentality, so this is one of the hardest pills for me to swallow as a developer. I want EVERYONE to be happy. Unfortunately, the rules of the real world make that impossible.

So there you go. That’s my advice. I really believe that devs and players can work together in a healthy way. And this is my advice for making that a reality. Thanks for reading!

I think the thread is getting pretty of track at this point. We have discussed implementation of the 3 threads and had some pretty enjoyable conversations.

if we have nothing more to contribute about the Collaboration process then i suggest that we think about closing the thread, as folks who want answers on questions that are not on topic are going to get frustrated if i don’t discuss it with them.

Do we want to continue talking about the main topic of the thread?

Chris

Pegaasus.3280:

KOPPER.1458:

“Shame on you all, tons of rangers are quitting the game becouse of your blindness.
Next Update October 15th will be last train for many rangers like me.
If you fail…simply consider ranger class died out”

You realize by now these decisions are set in stone right? So the class is either dead or it isn’t by now. While some changes are coming I hardly think you are going to get enough to make you really happy with them. Just a gut feeling.

Yes mate, I knwo myself there is no hope for ranger class
Just go reading ranger forums and look how many people are disgusted by Ranger current status.
Thx god new games are coming out..so..unless they do a good job on ranger..bye bye Arenanet))

Ranger balance is certainly something we discuss. I don’t want to derail the thread by going into more details, suffice to say we are aware of the perception and concerns and this is certainly an area we will discuss as we move forward. The plan for Collaborative Development moving forward will allow you to discuss your concerns with the developers and brain storm idea etc.

Regarding your current feelings toward stopping playing, that is totally your choice, and whilst we would be sad to see you leave please understand that ‘threats’ of quitting aren’t going to magically get you what you want. I just want to be clear about that.

Chris

Enikuo.9205:

I’m shocked, but impressed and glad to come back and see all the responses from you Chris.

I think in-game polls could be good, but I think they would need more sophisticated choices than what you had in beta. I seem to remember answering how much I liked an event on a scale of 1-5, or something to that effect, which isn’t going to give you the depth of feedback that I think you need in most cases. I also don’t think they can replace actual interaction.

It’s really important for you to understand why players do or don’t like something. Plus, I think it’s important for us to be able to tell you “why” and feel that we’ve been heard. Your idea to have focused threads in appropriate forums is great. It bothers me when you (dev) start a feedback thread, only to lock or delete it without giving substantive feedback. You get pages and pages of responses and then, poof, it’s gone. Any response that shows you’re engaged, like asking questions or sharing your thought process is so much better. So, I’m really glad to see that you’re on board with more back-and-forth conversations.

Also, when you started “shooting from the hip,” I began to feel a lot better about what you have to say. The carefully-worded market-ese just sets off alarms. And, maybe it’s just me, but it seems that the cross-talk between players calmed down a lot when you started responding, which I think is really good. Your very presence seems to help the tone of the forums.

If you’re looking for suggestions for what to talk about, I’d like to see vertical/horizontal progression covered. The reason that I’m interested in that topic is because I liked playing alternate characters and the changes around progression really impacted that play style for me. I’ll explain more if that ever gets covered, but regardless of what happens, I’m looking forward to this new initiative and am hopeful it will work out. So, thanks!

Thanks to you all! Like i was saying it is a really enjoyable conversation and I hope it works out to.

And i am sure we will discuss horizontal/vertical progression (-:

Catch you all tomorrow.

Chris

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

Go home Chris or you’ll be here all night… we’re a demanding bunch remember.

Just got home. If it’s ok with everyone i am going to relax a bit with the family and get back to chatting tomorrow morning?

Meanwhile this is what i think the current status of the discussion is:

1: Yes to a forum on each of our core pages (WvW, PVE and PvP). One topic at a time. Each topic stays up for two days and then cycles and rotates? Ordering of priority of topics to be discussed.
2: Polls are generally a good idea. Discussion to continue about how they would work?

Thanks for conversation i am really enjoying it. See you tomorrow,

Chris

nethykins.7986:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

nethykins.7986:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

I want to echo the people who have recently been requesting in-game polls. Since currently there has been no real acknowledgement or response to player dissatisfaction with the pace of Living Story releases, I have chosen to simply not log in at all to avoid being counted as a “satisfied customer” in your concurrency metrics.

An in-game poll where I would have the chance to have my opinions actually be counted would be something worth logging in for.

I think this is an idea worth discussion for sure. But i have a question:

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

But what constitutes as “Immersion”?

…you guys had said you didn’t want to do things like fight with town clothes because it “broke immersion”, but, like…can we say that the LFG tool breaks immersion? Not too sure we can if you were keen to add it

Good point. So for me immersion breaking would be a pop up appearing after an event completes or following beating a dungeon. But you raise an interesting point with LFG. Perhaps (and i am just brainstorming here) it could be a tab that you can open up to give feedback.

I will think about it some more. Keep the ideas coming.

Chris

Pssst!!! You might want to tell some of the devs to stop breaking immersion. Every time we get a daily chest, kill a dragon/major boss once a day, finish a dungeon….

Also! before i forget. Thanks…for just being here…now…doing this. Really. It helps a ton.

No worries thanks for being so collaborative with the discussion.By the way i have to disagree though. I personally feel that a poll is less immersive then the bouncy chest. Mainly because the chest is still in the theme of the game world and more connected to the gamestate. Where as the Poll is more abstract in terms of goal and gamestate.

This said we are having a discussion and i am just giving my opinion.

Chris

So by the way we have two main topics of conversation now:

1: Polls: Every seems to like them but where do they go?
2: Game Feedback Collaboration: How do we want to do this?

Chris

Randulf.7614:

Personally I’d prefer to see a more regular update from the director rather than just every half year/quarterly. If you look at Colin’s last update, it’s out of date mostly as you have caught up and overtaken it. If it must be that we will get 2 week updates, a “what’s ahead” every month on these forums is more appropriate to the timescale you are working towards.

Time scale wise, any project we work on at minimum takes 3-4 months from starting production to getting live (and that’s the fast stuff) to include development, testing, design, art, recording the VO, getting it localized, getting the build setup, and the build distributed. This means often times the things we’re working on aren’t constantly changing, so we don’t have huge updates to give all the time, but I do think we can more frequently update the “state of the game” over all to better reflect the minimum development time-frame and that’s totally valid feedback.

I’ll try doing the once every 6 month Gw2 status updates every 3 months starting in 2014 (the next one will be in January) and see how that works going forward. If every 3 months is still not frequent enough we can all discuss that as a community at that time, though I’m not sure a big blog post saying we’re still working on the same stuff each month would be very useful or well received

Sarrs.4831:

I don’t know if a single thread would be the go. There are more than a few hot-button issues, at least on the WvW side; having a consistent dialogue on each of those would be good, but having a single thread try to encompass them all would be ineffective, I feel.

How about this then? We create a forum thread on the main forum to discuss high level aspects of the game with Colin and I, and meanwhile on this thread people put forward ideas of how to move forward with a process for collaborative development from the forums? Then a method can be picked and we go from there?

Chris

Cactus.2710:

Shockwave.1230:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So back to the matter at hand. Through reading the posts i think it would be really useful for me to start a thread like ‘name one thing you would like to see improved in Guild Wars 2’ and then start riffing with you all on these subjects matters and try to make a more meaningful connection with you all that way by which we can define a process together for Collaborative Development?

I am also going to ask that we build out more time for team members to post and i will follow up with you all on that.

What do you think, does this sound like a good way to move forward?

Chris

It’d be great for everyone to have visibility into the game’s “Pillars” and have them documented somewhere that the community can see them. It’s important that the community understand these. Currently all anyone, who is not internal, has to go off of is what has been observed over the past year, which is pretty telling in and off itself. Having a common understanding about the game’s core competencies is a good place to start the communication at, in addition to the other valuable suggestions that have been made of course.

What do you think the odds are that you will ever see that?? The fact that you won’t says way more than the post from Chris did.

I feel we do regularly state our pillars but clearly we need to do a better job. Yep i think its a really good idea to state our pillars. I will work out how best to do that.

Chris

minbariguy.7504:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I will do my best to feedback but at the same time i hope people will respect the fact that there are just some things i won’t be able to go into.

Chris

Might I suggest that if you come up against a subject you cannot go into, you plainly identify it as such instead of just ignoring the post in question? That would help to manage expectations all around. Having someone think, “Ah rats, he can’t talk about that”, is much better than having them think “What the…? Is he just going to pretend he didn’t even see my post?”

Also, if the reception to Living Story is one of the things you can’t talk about, may Dwayna have mercy on your soul. ;-)

I will do my best (-:

Chris

Also note that the main intention of the initial forum post is to build a bridge with you all and develop some processes together for Collaborative Development through the forums. we can build up some ideas for what will work best and go from there.

Note i am not able to post with this frequency all the time. I happen to have a semi free afternoon where i would normally be in game or catching up with team members but i do intend to build out some more time for this and potentially cut my play time down in the evenings to chat with you all.

So please don’t think if i don’t reply it is because i am ignoring you all. I just have to balance my time effectively.

Chris

Atherakhia.4086:

I strongly suggest you put these ‘what do you want to see’ type of threads in appropriate forums. Part of the problem in the past has been class forums are completely ignored so players are forced to air class issues in the sPvP forum because that’s the only one you visit.

If you’re going to make threads, make class specific ones in each forum. WvW one in the WvW forum. sPvP in the sPvP. And so forth. Otherwise we’ll all just be fighting amongst ourselves in a single thread. ‘Im not overpowered, you are!’ stuff.

That’s a really good idea which raises an interesting point. i am well versed in the game globally but not necessarily in the specifics of certain areas. So here is what i will do, i will post one in general asking for PVE specific feedback and then nominate two other members of staff to do the same in WvW and PvP and we can go from there. Note i am not going to do this over night as i do want to create some guidelines (set by me) for what the team can answer and can’t that way you guys can be frustrated with me rather than a specific developer (-:

Put simply though we don’t comment on specific dev. content that is in the pipe unless we are confident about it internally.

Chris

Hi All,

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner but i have been taking the time to read through the thread.

I wanted to say thanks for both some great feedback (community members posting what they like and don’t like) and that it has been useful to see some health debate regarding our interaction with you all.

I wanted to clear a few things up first:

Copy Paste Conspiracy!!!
A few weeks ago i posted on a thread regarding how we use forums to collaborate in terms of development. That thread was then deleted before i had time to post the second part of the content. My intention was to then add the whole post to the general discussion forum. I therefore decided to add to the the original post i had written and put it on the general discussion page. Sorry if i offended anyone. The time delay was caused by me being out of the office last week.

We don’t listen to negative feedback.
I just wanted to clarify this is not the case at all. Constructive feedback can be both positive or negative feedback. Un-constructive feedback in my opinion is when the post is muddied by overly emotional context such as being rude, disrespectful or making wild assumptions. Therefore please understand that negative criticism about the game is something we value and is core to collaborative development.

Chris Whiteside has a team of writers/PR people and Marketeers talking through him!
This is not the case. i just happen to write this way. Everything i say comes from the heart and if it helps i can write in a less passionate manner. Note i am English and this may have some effect on the way i write (People in the studio tend to blame a lot of the mistakes i make on being English so you are all in good company there)

So back to the matter at hand. Through reading the posts i think it would be really useful for me to start a thread like ‘name one thing you would like to see improved in Guild Wars 2’ and then start riffing with you all on these subjects matters and try to make a more meaningful connection with you all that way by which we can define a process together for Collaborative Development?

I am also going to ask that we build out more time for team members to post and i will follow up with you all on that.

What do you think, does this sound like a good way to move forward?

Chris

Hi All,

I would like to thank everyone for their support toward the pioneering work we are doing, as we drive the world of Tyria forward.
The passion, and intelligence that our community devotes to making this game great is both humbling and essential.

Regarding our process in terms of forum usage as a development tool:

The reality is we do read our forums, and others, every single day. If you look over the last year, and cross reference with community feedback you will see many ideas actioned and many more not.

The communication pipeline in most part lacks one very important component. Specifically, ArenaNet having more time to feedback on your ideas, concerns and our own plans.

I am not one for excuses, but I do believe in being black and white. ArenaNet has been extremely busy of late listening to you all, evolving systems, providing ground breaking content, delivering adventures at a near real time pace, and tackling some very exciting problems.

We have, with your support, created a truly unique platform. One which is in its infancy, and one we build with the continued support, and collaboration of the community.

We do need to build out more time to be in dialog with you, specifically, following up on our own investigations of your suggestions and concerns.
We will work harder to achieves this.

We are also trying to forge a truly ‘Living World’. Therefore with your continued support, and patience we can continue to break new ground. Not just with world of Tyria, but with the method by which we build worlds ‘together’.

All of this said, I wanted to make it clear that whilst we avidly read our forums, we pay little, to no, attention to posts that are disrespectful to other members of our community or our development team. Our developers work very hard to listen to the community, and work tirelessly to create content and features that they hope the community will love. Likewise, the constructive members of our community work hard to provide our development team with feedback that abides with our collaborative standards and overall community philosophy of having a productive, welcoming, and friendly culture. This is a true partnership.

Our goal with Guild Wars 2 is to drive the creation of online worlds forward, thereby creating original, ‘stand-out’ content that pushes the boundaries of what it means to journey through a Living World. Any endeavor on this scale is going to have its challenges, and therefore as a team, we are fully prepared to make mistakes, learn from them, and make even better experiences as we move forward. We see problems not as failures but as opportunities, essentially a necessary part of Tyria’s and our Team’s evolution. It is with this understanding that we work with our community to move forward in the space and truly realize great things.

One key to understanding our philosophy to building worlds is that we don’t give more attention to feedback simply because it is the noisiest, most aggressive, or delivered in the most inflammatory way. We take on board all constructive feedback and actively discuss it, and then make a decision to backlog the item or move forward with it (the development of which can sometimes take longer than some give it credit for). Therefore do not expect feedback to be implemented just because it is something you feel very strongly about. We just don’t develop like that. We instead work with our community to help us navigate these uncharted waters, taking on board all advice and measuring them against the pillars of the Guild Wars 2 and the direction we ultimately want to move in as a whole.

Therefore you have to ask yourself: Is this a journey you want to take? Are you comfortable with expecting the unexpected, and ultimately working together in a positive and productive manner through thick and thin, to pioneer in a space that the team at ArenaNet feel is of huge importance? Many of you are not only comfortable with this paradigm but embrace it, and your contribution, as you know has already shaped Tyria immensely, for which we are extremely grateful and excited about.

Regardless of whether you wish to collaborate in the spirit outlined above or not, I ask that you remain respectful to your fellow man/woman, and be constructive in your approach to the development of the game, and understand Tyria is made up of communities and not individuals.

So thank you all so much for your support, passion and collaboration, and please understand that Arena is an amazing team with an amazing community. And together we build worlds!

Chris W