Guild Wars 2

Thanks for your post. I really enjoy most of the new content in PvE with the exception of Tequatl that has now become a barren wasteland. Most of the PvE content has been widely enjoyable and thank you very much for the content. I particularly loved the Super Adventure Box (after the bug fixes) and the TA path.

Some of the things that I do not like with PvE are the fact that warriors get constant buffs that make them superior in so many ways to other classes. The meta has also not changed since zerker gear is pretty much the best way to do anything (if its an experienced group). What makes this bad is that since this is being preached all the time, we have a lot of terrible players that die ALL the time because they explore new content with only the zerker armor since they don’t bother or don’t have the inventory space to get any other armor. These players also do not know how to dodge out of a big red circle which is baffling when they are true 80s with exotic gear.

With the harder new content the pure zerker is troublesome. In a good and experienced party this is great, but when players rage quit NEW cotnent because they refuse to learn new instances or claim it is too difficult because they can’t make it through with their zerker only armor it is troublesome. Players no longer go through the game experimenting or trying new things because they believe that zerkers is the only way or the best way to do new content that they haven’t learned the mechanics of. This problem is exacerbated with players trying to attain achievements that require DPS fests – it only reinforces zerk only builds.

Things that I do have issues about is the other parts of the game such as WvW. I have a lot of friends that play WvW who have now moved on to other games due to the changes to WvW that make it terrible for newer players and those with multiple alts.

The buffs (Guard buffs), character bound ability points, and the more troubling Bloodlust buff have turned off a lot of players – new and old alike. I know they wanted to reward players with “abilities” that provide different skills and advantages to said players but the guard buffs and the bloodlust buffs just provide too much of an advantage that is useful throughout WvW and are not situational like the other masteries that require specific siege or supplies that are stationary on the floor. It’s like fighting 1.5 enemies instead of 1 enemy. It is not fun to be outnumbered, but to be at such a statistical disadvantage makes it unenjoyable and a lot of times leaves such a bitter taste in your mouth figuratively. It makes the hill so much more difficult to climb that it feels like the developers in WvW are constantly pushing you down to the bottom of the hill when you’re nearly at the top.

We all know WvW is all about numbers, but the recent changes have made a lot of new and old players not want to venture into WvW, particularly since they are outmanned, have way lower stats compared to the buffed players, and results in people quitting or swearing off WvW because they don’t have a remote chance of having a fair fight due to the guard buffs. The ability lines are great (mortar, supply, treb) with the exception of the guard buff lines due to their significant advantages not only individual fights, but group fights, it is a no-brainer that 90%+ of the WvW playerbase grabs the guard lines first because it is provides such a significant advantage.

I do hope that in the future that statistical buffs are removed and that only traitlines that are situational (mortars, acs, trebs, flame rams, oil) are in play with the supply lines and defense/offense limited to guards/npcs only. Fights were much more interesting and close when these buffs weren’t here.

Sorry for the wall of text. But I do appreciate almost all the new content in the PvE environment. The WvW content has been pretty much a disaster for me for awhile now with the bloodlust buff being the worst offender.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

There is so many things that you’ve tried to “sweep under the rug” and completely ignore. That is completely disrespectful.

I think this is extremely relevant and I agree 100%. Chris and team, here is some constructive advice from one random customer of yours:

• Sweeping issues under a rug, doesn’t make it go away. Ignoring the issue only magnifies it. We have seen a couple instances of that on these very forums.

• Please be open and honest with us, speak to us as people. I can assure you most of us would appreciate that more than excessive PR speak. Some ANet developers use way too much PR speak when talking to their customers.

• You have a great community team, please use them more. We don’t expect developers to be on the forums or answer questions. But there needs to be more communication between ANet and the community. It is severely lacking.

• This goes with the previous point. More interaction less moderation.

Thanks.

I would like to second the sentiment of the poster who pointed out that respect needs to go both ways.

Also a collaborative relationship is limited when one side restricts information, or spreads misinformation, to the degree seen from ANet.

Respectful collaboration and communication is also limited when comments on elements affecting that communication are deleted, not for being abusive but rather for pointing out the impact of throttling discussion of a topic of relevance.

When the original post turns out to be, either in its entirety or at least in significant part, a cut and paste quote of an earlier post, without indication of such, the tone of the entirety is altered in a negative manner.

It’s worth noting that almost everyone that started playing this game was supporting everything they were doing at the beginning. That’s why people bought the game to begin with.

We all had expectations that weren’t fufilled over the course of a year. People didn’t start getting angry overnight. It was because of the actions the devs took that caused it. Over a year of short comings and other nonsense is what sparked all of this.

This whole post by Chris is really just adding fuel to the fire by basically saying “we don’t appreciate negative post about the game and we overlook it, but we welcome positive post with open arms” in so many words.

I respected GW2’s developers from the get-go, as I do most people, they lost my respect through a solid year of steady mistreatment of the playerbase.

If they want my (and most players) respect again, they’ll have to earn it.

And so long as you refute verifiable fact, truth, and honestly stated opinion; because it isn’t said as ‘prettily’ as you’d like it, you don’t deserve anyone’s respect.

You are a service to us, not us to you. Improve your actions until we respect you again, then you can have all the kindly stated critique on your work you like. Until then, be happy we still care enough and have stuck around to give any. It’s more than you deserve.

didnt you hear? guild wars are not allowed in guild wars 2

Emergent gameplay used to be the holy grail of MMO design. Now you can only visit the themepark and ride the rides exactly as the creators intend. Sad really.

Aberrant.6749:

If it’s interfering with the game… next I’ll be given a ban for wanting to do some solo roaming since it doesn’t add to the ppt. Apparently I’m only allowed to do PvD in WvW.

Field fights that don’t contribute to PPT, duels, GvGs are all going against the dev’s vision of WvW.

Creating artificially balanced fights and otherwise having fun in ways that are not intended is pretty much an exploit.

GET PPT OR GET BANNED SON!

This is really a shame. Employees need to learn that as long as they represent their company in public, their actions will be taken as the official company line. Players are going to see this as confirmation that ArenaNet hates GvG, and it’s just going to reduce trust and confidence further. That’s the last thing ArenaNet needs right now.

This dev seriously needs to let his baby go.

You made a sandboxy PvP environment and keep trying to assign more and more rules when people JUST want to fight other people.

It’s OK. If people are having fun and playing your game, you’re still winning. Being an kitten wipe is not the way to make people play your game.

Sorry that this “name and shames”. I tried to edit but I’m woefully bad at doing so. Anyways, here is some screenshot of an ANET employee kind of being a jerk to us who were GvGing. Hopefully I don’t get infracted, but I imagine it’s coming.

Enjoy,
http://imgur.com/a/mhYp4

For anyone who calls “taken out of context”, I have a full 45 minute video to give you the entire backdrop of the situation.

Lamir.6702:

So many misplaced commas…Thanks for sharing your point about criticism being listened to better if it’s done in a constructive way, but that was pretty hard to read.

Also, this really sounds like a dev crosspost from a thread a month ago. On further investigation that thread is now deleted? Wonder why.

Rofl, so true. A bunch of the paragraphs in this post are repeated in another post in:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/What-A-Dev-Think-About-The-Official-Forums

Why is a developer giving us rehashed developer posts. This is honestly getting a bit excessive now, and if you think your playerbase is too stupid to catch on to how part of this post was copy paste, then you severely underestimate us, and yet another dev post to calm people down, only infuriates me further.

We wouldnt be here if you had listened to us a long time ago, when we were right and you were wrong.

I think there is a large amount of excellent, well-written and constructively presented ideas, feedback, and concerns on the forums. The problem is that many of those posts often get one or two responses, a few hundred views, and then fall dead into the wayside because they didn’t incite some controversy (nor garnered any official responses or explanations of why things were done a certain way).

If the development team switched their resources to reply (even very briefly) to more of these constructive threads, I think you’d see a notable improvement in the community. Sometimes people just want to know what’s left and right. ArenaNet do not directly serve the forum community nor do they need their approval, but that doesn’t mean it is bad to explain why unpopular (on the forums) features are implemented, or why good suggestions can’t be implemented.

After all, metrics only tell you so much and you have to be careful what you derive from it.

I think many people are difficult to please, and I think many passionate people are very difficult to please. I also think sometimes people mistake passionate people for unreasonable ones; we have to be careful to make a distinction between whining and someone seeing a great potential in something that can nevertheless be improved.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Vayne.8563:

Dynamic events take a lot more work to create than traditional quests. How many events would Anet have to create to make all that happen?

A lot, sure, but wouldn’t that be worth it?

This isn’t something people are demanding, Vayne, this is something that would be nice for the future, nice for new areas and so on. I’d really like to see it.

Sure it’s something people are demanding. The question is how many people.

I’m in the boat with people who’d like this sort of thing…a lot. But I also realize that my play style is not as common as some others. For me to insist effort be put into something, I’d first have to believe the majority would want/benefit from it. I don’t really think that’s the case.

I’d love it if this game had no vertical progression, no grind and more open world content that makes you think…unfortunately, I don’t think the majority of players want that (even if the majority of people who post to forums do).

It should be a surprise to no one that people are rushing out to farm champions, given that it was suddenly made the easiest way to obtain the latest shiny things in the game, as well as being fairly profitable to boot. Looking at it as an approving nod that everyone find it to be the most fun or compelling thing to do is probably a mistake. If there is one thing I’ve learned from playing, it’s that people are willing to do things they don’t find fun to get their fix of equipment or reward. If new, involved and compelling dynamic events were the easiest and best way to obtain the materials and items people wanted, those would no doubt see a lot of attention. I find it unwise to pretty much stealth add a bunch of dynamic events a year ago, find that no one seeks them out (I didn’t know they’d added them then), and then surmise that people don’t want to do dynamic events.

Looking at the fact that people are choosing to play content is not even half the story. If you don’t know how fun they find it or how satisfied they are with it, making it the key cornerstone for future updates seems suspect at best. I’ll grant you that there are probably people who find it fun, but I’d like to suggest that if you switched the rewards around, you’d see the commitment to champion farming go back to the state before they were loot dispensers, and a lot more people would do other events.

I think the key pitfall may be to presume that just because a lot of people are doing this, you’ve struck on the only thing people want and how to make them play. I doubt that and I sincerely hope that just because this has become popular, it is not an indication that the bulk of resources will be committed to more of this sort of thing.

A lot of players also tend to follow the snowball effect. If a critical mass of players is doing something, they’ll naturally be joined by players who seek things to do.

As for the resources available to the development team; I think as players we don’t really have to concern ourselves with that. Not sharing ideas because we suspect the developers don’t have the resources seems detrimental, and it isn’t like they really have to listen to us anyway. Also, not having enough resources for certain things is in essence a choice. It sounds like they’re doing really well and raking in millions, so surely they could hire a few more people if they really wanted to. In that sense, this is a choice a developer makes.

It is OK to do some things that aren’t the most popular. It is okay if not everyone wants to do everything, just as I certainly opt not to do some of the things currently in the game. If you only cater to the majority when you don’t have to, I think you’re missing an opportunity to create some brilliant game play. There is no doubt in my mind that a balance between compelling content and reward mentality can be struck. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive to the extent they are now.

The infrastructure of the game seems to support a much more compelling style of event chains than what is currently being presented. I’d like to see dynamic events (and perhaps even some hearts) be updated to have more meaning in the world. It doesn’t feel that interesting to clear out 10 centaurs wandering aimlessly around, or those spawning wave after wave only to be easily put down ad nauseam for 7 minutes. Once done, the cycle just repeats on a very short interval. There’s no impact.

It is my impression that players of MMOs are often in it for the long haul. They may not all play very much per week, but they come back and very often find themselves in the same places. I think it would be perfectly OK if one day, or half a day, a zone has certain characteristics depending on how events have been unfolding, and then another day it’s something different. This would only add some flair. Maybe one day the centaurs are mounting a serious offensive on Shaemoor, and if you beat them back, they scatter to recover. If they take the garrison, the surrounding events would change to gather materials and forces for a siege to take it back. The doors would be closed and the centaurs would be wreaking havoc with siege shots from their new fortification. During the centaur siege, the event may run for a long while, with many “sub” events going that award players who only have a certain chunk of time to commit. Bring ammo bundles to the trebuchets, kill the centaur patrols, rally and escort soldiers across the map, finally lay siege, mount the assault, and then take down the leader inside the garrison as the grand finale.

In one area you may have an NPC asking for help gathering certain resources, e.g. some of the stuff we find around the zone. When they have obtained enough, an escort quest begins which spans across part of the map. Maybe you get to vote on the route, or the route changes depending on how quickly the enemy waves are handled, or perhaps it’s random. If the destination is reached, merchants will set up shop and sell unique or useful items. Perhaps multiple escort quests take place, and if all of them are successful, a small settlement is built with all sorts of convenience vendors. Then the defense events begin at certain intervals and become increasingly intense each time they happen. Perhaps a steady flow of supply also has to be kept to keep the settlement running.

Then in some other area, you have an NPC asking for your help regarding very specific acquisitions. If the combined efforts of the players succeed, a buff becomes available for everyone on the map; this could be extra magic find, for example, or more vitality, or something else entirely. Perhaps there are multiple of these on each map, all with different buffs or perks that can be kept up given enough supplies.

Once you’ve completed a heart, instead of just having the eternal gratitude of the person, perhaps you can continue to perform small tasks for them for pocket change karma. You’re in the area anyway and happened to loot a few extra tools or revive a few extra soldiers. Make it feel more like an ongoing effort; after all, the hearts remain even when you’re through, with little to no evidence that you’re done making a difference.

I could keep suggesting forever, but I’m interested in hearing some of your ideas.

I love your idea of DE’s and to be honest I think that originally they might have had something like this in mind- especially since they said that they developed them in a way that they are easy to add to and expand.

Very unfortunately for us ( people who enjoy DE’s) when they did add DE’s to the game back in Oct it went almost completely unnoticed and now… well you know what is happening now- people are basically farmbots and complain if they are not “sufficiently rewarded” for basically everything.

I would love them to build on the game in this way because it would truly enhance the world and make the game more alive.
DE’s are one of the best features of GW2 imo.

If they had the resources and the time they could do this for the rest of us who are not obsessed with loot- I am not sure if there are enough of us or if they are aware that we feel like this.

it’s pretty basic really. numbers without context are meaningless. numbers are there to assist with the context, but can never outright replace context. it’s like people who simply quote stat sheets in sports, yet are completely ignorant of any intangibles that aren’t represented on said stat sheets. those people tend to come up with wildly outlandish theories, especially when it comes up to thinking up trade proposals. the rosters they tend to dream up would get absolutely demolished in reality, because they’re completely one dimensional. without context to gain a deeper understanding of the subject matter, the numbers are actually more of a detriment than helpful, because unless someone knows exactly how to interpret them, they’re almost guaranteed to misinterpret them. and those misinterpretations leads to false conclusions, and if someone is banking their business on them, those false conclusions lead to bankruptcy.

the sad part is, this isn’t some sort of advanced insight. anyone that has a high school education should be aware of this. as far as mathematics go, this is a very basic level. however, the basics tend to be the first thing people forget once their ego tells them they’re flawless. and then things unravel from their during their giant downward spiral of a reality check. which, in most cases, is extremely amusing to watch. or, to put it another way, pride goes before the fall, and america’s funniest home videos taught us that seeing people falling can be absolutely hilarious. especially if they get hit in the groin at some point during it.

So many misplaced commas…Thanks for sharing your point about criticism being listened to better if it’s done in a constructive way, but that was pretty hard to read.

Also, this really sounds like a dev crosspost from a thread a month ago. On further investigation that thread is now deleted? Wonder why.

Charak.9761:

You want feedback to fixing your game?

1.) Extrinsic rewards need to be provided away from RNG/Gold. Your skinner box is really poorly designed, to many players are smashing that button down and getting nothing out, while only a couple are getting 800g precursors on the first push. This is ultimately frustrating, there is no way to work towards any cosmetic item in a ‘fun’ matter that doesn’t involve champ train or TP flipping.

2.) Precursor crafting should be pushed to highest priority, not last item on the list

3.) Real Quality of life changes: Dual Specialization, LFG Tool takes you to dungeon (no porting to map), WvW map viewable before going inside, Glory tradable for PvE items, UI for Mini (separate from bank), Achievement Meta rewards placed in the achievement item panel (why are players left with the ever increasing amounts of backitems they may be to scared to use because they only got 1), and account-bound WvW rank and FOTM levels.

4.) Fotm rewards are lacking after a player receives their back-item and rings.

5.) Reward vs. Time vs. Skill Charts, this is really lop sided, why is farming champs or TP flipping more rewarding than say arah p4, or 8 orb Liadari, or even fotm (your ‘end-game’ dungeon).

6.) Heading back to GW lore, the LS has gone way off base and most people can’t seem to follow the story as to what is happening. I’m pretty sure a lot of us still don’t understand who Scarlet is and why she does what she does.

Listen to this man!

Now to respond to the Devs.

Your issue is we started out calm and kind, but we were met with an attitude of “this is our game, and we will do what we want with it”. To make matters worse we were given lengthy posts and articles similar to this promising us the world and everything we wanted. However in implementation we were given things that didnt work quite right, things taken to extremes (RNG weapons for events) or just simply told ‘soon’. And slowly that minotrity of immature players turned into the majority as players opinions seemingly were ignored.

Now we stand here, with another piece of rhetoric that we are asked to accept at face value. I ask this… why should we? Why should the community believe anything that is said by a Developer here when so many times we are given words without actions? We’ve already heard the story – a promise to be more vocally active – and yet here we are again needing a Dev to tell us it will all be ok.

So, Im sorry, but I dont believe really anything in that Dev post.

Charak.9761:

You want feedback to fixing your game?

1.) Extrinsic rewards need to be provided away from RNG/Gold. Your skinner box is really poorly designed, to many players are smashing that button down and getting nothing out, while only a couple are getting 800g precursors on the first push. This is ultimately frustrating, there is no way to work towards any cosmetic item in a ‘fun’ matter that doesn’t involve champ train or TP flipping.

2.) Precursor crafting should be pushed to highest priority, not last item on the list

3.) Real Quality of life changes: Dual Specialization, LFG Tool takes you to dungeon (no porting to map), WvW map viewable before going inside, Glory tradable for PvE items, UI for Mini (separate from bank), Achievement Meta rewards placed in the achievement item panel (why are players left with the ever increasing amounts of backitems they may be to scared to use because they only got 1), and account-bound WvW rank and FOTM levels.

4.) Fotm rewards are lacking after a player receives their back-item and rings.

5.) Reward vs. Time vs. Skill Charts, this is really lop sided, why is farming champs or TP flipping more rewarding than say arah p4, or 8 orb Liadari, or even fotm (your ‘end-game’ dungeon).

6.) Heading back to GW lore, the LS has gone way off base and most people can’t seem to follow the story as to what is happening. I’m pretty sure a lot of us still don’t understand who Scarlet is and why she does what she does.

This!!!

I don’t care if Rednames post more, because I don’t trust any of you. 50 posts with Zero Value is identical to 2 posts with Zero Value, except for the amount of page space wasted.

Not a post that’s filled with a lot of substance, to be honest. Enjoining the forums to exhibit less of a toxic behaviour understandable, but all that PR speak about trying to listen to your community and trying to build a unique world sounds really hollow. That’s just me, though.

You’re in your rights to delete the posts of disrespectful, insulting users and warn them. Mentioning that you’re going to enforce these kinds of rules more strictly would’ve given the OP message more substance.

I would suggest releasing up a roadmap of where you plan to go with the game, including – yes, including – where you are currently standing with things like like new gear tiers, level caps, requested feature X(dueling, mounts, et al.). It would save your player base from being needlessly disappointed because they waited for something you don’t plan to implement ever, or vice versa. Be honest about your plans, see what the player base thinks, adjust accordingly or not and explain why. That way people don’t feel betrayed and have enough time to make a decision about whether or not they want to keep playing. But I guess that kind of transparency’s out of the question.

I appreciate the post and your efforts, Chris, and having played since the first Beta weekend, I will say that at least for me, there have been vast improvements in the game and I can see that many of these improvements are actually based on player input.

I do not post much in the forums anymore, because, to be honest, the atmosphere of these forums is stifling. In fact, of all the things I would like to see improved it is just this—the overwhelming feeling that one must look over their shoulder continuously or face the wrath of the powers that be. The feeling that everything I do is being watched and monitored for wrongdoing—-or to control the way I do things—-so that every aspect of gameplay is under strict control by someone other than myself.

Much of the time I run into annoyinkitteniments (why that word was censored, I do not know, but strangely ironic and apropos that it was. for those wondering it was synonymous with “hindrance”. ) to smooth gameplay that are controls put in place to deter bad behavior, but that indiscriminately punish everyone for the sins of a few. The overuse of the “soul bound” and “account bound” items—which does nothing to encourage altruistic and kind behavior in the community and instead encourages an atmosphere of greed and selfishness. The annoying “red error message” if you are selling too fast at the BLT, so that your game slows to a crawl while you attempt to clean out your inventory. Not everyone is trying to cheat or game the system, yet everyone is treated like a cheat and scalawag.

There is also this feeling that the developers find the players to be beneath them—-peons—-that must be tolerated while they —-develop “their” game-—and I am not sure how true collaboration happens if there is not an equal partnership.

I would encourage Arenanet to require their employees to play the game. To go into the game NOT on the server they are used to, and NOT with their usual buddies, but choose a player at random, introduce themselves AS Arenanet employees, and tell them they would like to party with that person and play the game with them as they usually play, and get their ideas and thoughts. It would be an eye opener.

Give the players something free every month. Something FUN and not soulbound. Have a weekend of double dye drops, or exotic drops, or something just for the fun of it, without even considering for a moment the effect on the economy or that it might promote bad behavior. Imagine for a moment we are all great people and just play to have fun. Games should be fun.

Also give the players a way to truly make their mark in the world. Give us a graffiti marker with our name on it as a gift, a lot like the “Box of Fun”—-make a placeable that we can set out in world that would stay a short time and say: I was here. When someone strikes the killing blow on a world boss, let his personal flag fly in that spot til it respawns. I would encourage you all to make the player feel like heroes, and an truly integral part of the game. Something along these lines that says the History of this world is TRULY our history.

Again, I appreciate your thoughts and time, Chris. I hope you appreciate mine.

The post seemed to me to be saying that they will happily ignore people who are aggressive and disrespectful.

While understandable on a human level I think this is a bad mistake on a professional level. There is a reason why many people are disrespectful, especially when the devs have just implemented a change or nerf to the game. The reason is that these people are passionate about the game too, they care about the change and are frustrated by it.

While we can all hope for a nice cosy utopia where we all say thank you when hit by a nerf bat it simply isn’t reality. Also, respect needs to run both ways and some of the changes made by ANet, along with a lack of communication, shows a lack of respect to many players; which in turn leads to some of the more inflammatory expressions.

ie. Don’t ignore your customers opinions just because they are annoyed and frustrated by what you do.

Chris, appreciate that you took the time to post. I know ANet is pushing a lot of content, probably understaffed, overworked and holidays are coming (which can often be busy time for game development in the face of hoped-for-vacations).

As I’ve said in posts before, it is perfectly reasonable to be appreciative of developer efforts and unhappy with the results.

I understand the iterative process of development (retired software dev here). I have to laugh because that is how everyone in my guild plays. It’s a process near and dear to us.

We still have very real concerns about the game.

Chris, your post starting this thread has added to our unease.

Buying and playing an MMO is both an emotional decision and an emotional experience. We whole heartedly embraced the new direction of mobile combat and lateral gear progression in an MMO. We were convinced GW2 was going to be our “last” MMO after 13 years of looking for the game that offered our small swat-team the play we enjoyed (5-man).

We are seeing increasing additions to the game from other genres (Nintendo), and non-permanent campaign content (Living Story) within the framework of an MMO (defined as a persistent world). Some could say this is modifying the MMO and moving the genre forward. We could say it is trying to twist an MMO in a direction it shouldn’t go. Experimentation can be a wonderful thing. As long as customers KNOW that they are buying into that BEFORE purchasing the game. We didn’t. And we feel blindsided.

Wish that had been communicated before we fell in love with the game play.

We’ve also asked for more transparency, and ANet is turning around and responding. Thank everyone for that, and we’d like to see more, please.

As we struggle with over 6 months of releases that have in effect served to alienate us, and yet we are continuing to support and help ANet where we can, we are left consistently wondering if ANet even wants us as customers.

The thing we’d like, more than anything having to do with game details, mechanics, etcetera, is a clear, definitive communication of how ANet sees this game. Is it an MMO, is it a hybrid, is it a graft of different non-MMO games onto a framework? Is it just an on-going experiment?

_Uneasy customers

When I first started playing the game, I made a point of visiting the “player helping other players” section, so that I could focus on the positives. I was never out to get anyone. The last time I posted in these forums, it was a post that showed the numbers for how often ArenaNet gave substantive responses to “popular” posts. It was just data, without any editorial commentary from me. I explained my methodology so that it could be fairly discussed. What can be less inflammatory and more respectful than plain old data? It was promptly dismissed by a community manager.

You couldn’t even take un-editorialized data onboard. Given that, I find it really hard to believe that you listen to feedback. To be honest, I feel dumb posting this.

It appears that you only consider quantitative data, like concurrency numbers. So, while I’d like to log in to level my alts and wait for changes, I feel that just serves to make you more intransigent on issues I care about. And, I wouldn’t mind posting constructive criticism, but it does seem wholly unwelcome and a waste of time.

I really did like the game (especially the art because omg, it’s so good). I’m sorry that you have to deal with so much negativity now. But, I think that you’re not taking enough ownership for your part in creating this environment. And, if you want change, you need to be that change too.

Kimyrielle.3826:

@Chris: I hear (and believe!) you guys reading these forums a lot and trying very hard to separate the good from the bad suggestions discussed here and take some of what we say into shaping the future of this game. I also fully support the urge for people being polite (evidently that’s not a given in the gaming community, sadly as is).

However, communication is a two-way process.

Personally I sometimes wish that if the community is engaged in a very lively discussion about something (a recent example would be the issue about hardcore vs. casual content), that developers would weigh in and offer -their- perspective and reasoning and plans for the future. It can be frustrating offering a lot of feedback and ideas (and yes, I know that some of what we say might be silly or infeasible), and getting not a lot of reaction in return. Being able to listen is good. Being able and willing to explain is better.

This pretty much echoes my own thoughts.

It’s easy for anyone to see that these boards are active enough, and the game development is active enough, for it to be impossible for ANet developers to respond to every little topic and suggestion. It’s also absolutely beneficial to precisely no one when ideas are ranted, raved and screamed about instead of discussed in a mature and open manner. Regardless of how you feel about something, positive or negative, that’s something we could definitely use more of.

For all of the topics, arguments and debate, however, there are absolutely some topics that clearly need and deserve a response from up on high. It’s not hard to see that a handful of topics do keep continually popping up, or whose threads grow ever longer by the hour. As much as ANet might not like it, there are needs for being definitive and “black and white.” Things like Cantha/Expansion Packs, the hardcore/casual divide, LS content being delivered faster than many players feel is healthy for themselves or the game, Ascended Gear and the apparent ANet flip flop on the topic, perceived silencing of developers who chose to communicate openly with the player base, etc. The reason we see so much discussion on these topics is not just because they are potentially divisive amongst players, but also because they very clearly are the sort of thing that can only be “solved” by direct developer response. Maybe ANets responses will raise some ire or even cause players to leave the game (and forums) for good, but the lack of meaningful response is what is really fueling the arguments. ANet has to, in my opinion, come to the realization that offering no response or just platitudes like “we’re thinking about it, but haven’t decided yet” or “it’s being considered” or “we hear your concerns” are actually part of the problem.

Martin Kerstein.3071:

This thread is about discussing the post from Chris Whiteside, not the moderation on this forum. Please focus on the topic at hand. Any further posts discussing things not related to the original post will be removed.

If you don’t want us discussing forum moderation, perhaps it would be best for all involved if CC Danicia’s post about forum moderation were removed to avoid any confusion? It would be very easy for someone to assume that an ArenaNet employee’s post regarding forum moderation makes it fair game/on-topic.

@Chris: I hear (and believe!) you guys reading these forums a lot and trying very hard to separate the good from the bad suggestions discussed here and take some of what we say into shaping the future of this game. I also fully support the urge for people being polite (evidently that’s not a given in the gaming community, sadly as is).

However, communication is a two-way process.

Personally I sometimes wish that if the community is engaged in a very lively discussion about something (a recent example would be the issue about hardcore vs. casual content), that developers would weigh in and offer -their- perspective and reasoning and plans for the future. It can be frustrating offering a lot of feedback and ideas (and yes, I know that some of what we say might be silly or infeasible), and getting not a lot of reaction in return. Being able to listen is good. Being able and willing to explain is better.