Guild Wars 2

Reesha.7901:

Randulf.7614:

would much rather see conversations like this..outside of the game (forums, reddit, livechat etc).

I agree with this. As I said on the previous page, I think it would be better if some of the bigger changes to the game had a line of communication after the actual implementation.

Without any communication after implementation, it is very hard to give actual feedback or to enter a dialog of some form. There are plenty of posts providing feedback on several topics, but without any dev replies, no one really knows if the feedback is even read, no one really knows if you agree with concerns raised.

Besides, and in game poll would not feel much like a dialog between developers and the community.

Yep and here lies a Catch 22 problem that we have to solve right? (Yes i know Catch 22 inherently can’t be solved, but nothing is impossible with GW2!)

I think feedback can be commented on, without giving the whole game away. I think questions can be asked and answered without giving the game away to. The problem is it just isn’t good for us to talk about specific work in progress before we are confident about it. So i suggest we ask questions and feedback on any areas of the game but don’t go into specifics regarding development of said items?

This is something we should discuss more in this thread.

Chris

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

nethykins.7986:

in relation to the “what do you want to see” threads…I’m hoping that you will actually have most threads that highlight key aspects of the game that need some fixing, instead of just having a spam-fest of ideas.

For example, Instead of :
“what do you want to see in WvW?” how about “What method would you use to curb buffs”

Or instead of

“what do you want to do about skills?” how about asking “What is most pressing. Condi stacks? Lack of gear variety? or Enemy skills vs player skills?”

Not saying everything should be relegated to significant areas, but it’d help to at least get somewhere.

On a side note, – As I’d said previously, I’d be nice if we could get the players from in-game participating too, and not just the forums.

I agree it would be awesome to build even more accessible communication networks and we should discuss that to. Meanwhile lets work together to make the forums a place where more folks from in game feel comfortable about hanging out in.

And no i am not being accusatory here (-: I am just saying wouldn’t that be cool?

Chris

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

eekzie.5640:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We definitely listened to the feedback surrounding CP and were aware there would be some concern before we deployed the content. We weighed up the pros and cons and went with it.

We will be offering a lot more player choice moving forward but have certainly learnt lessons from CP. We want the players to not just shape the social aspects of Tyria but the world itself. This is a topic i can’t go into more detail on currently.

Chris

This is what I mean exactly in my previous post in this topic. Thanks for taking your time by the way, I appreciate it.

And now you bring up the pro’s and con’s…
I can list a bunch of stuff here that you’ve also thought about.
But the biggest issues that are still left unanswered is why you would couple two completely unrelated choises together and just force people to make a bad decision?

And why do you let people who wouldn’t care about specific content choose it?
I’ve heard dozens of people who don’t do fractals, or don’t feel strong about them. Yet, they get to choose for people who care deeply about it.

I’ve just picked one topic here where I feel ArenaNet completely missed out on an awesome idea. And I’m sad to say that your response doesn’t really give me hope for a better future. And that’s a whole nother issue that seems to linger around which I could go on about for a long time.

This is a complex issue and one we could discuss for a long period of time. I am not sure what answer you are looking for suffice to say that we learnt a lot from this piece of content both good and not so good. This will allow us to build on these learning’s to ensure even better execution moving forward.

If you don’t mind i will think more about how best to answer this question and get back to you.

Meanwhile i am hoping with this thread that we can discuss a good process for collaborating moving forward and then once we have that we can put it into action.

Chris

RedStar.4218:

brick.2708:

I instead am more of a solo player who enjoys PvE and getting immersed. If I were to bring up ideas and thoughts about immersion, roleplay, character development, lore or simple no life changing game mechanics, I fear that my plea might go unheard under the avalance of demand for the before mentioned topics.

You aren’t alone. Well I’m not a roleplayer but I do like wandering around zones, doing whichever event I come across and learn about the lore. But game mechanic wise, if you really want to learn about the lore and the gist of what’s happening in each zone, you have to be extremely patient for events to trigger and some of them are pretty tedious…They aren’t hard, and it’s not that they take a while to complete, it’s that the event makes you do the same thing over and over again (if I managed to keep it up for 2 minutes and you didn’t implement an increase in difficulty, chances are, I’ll fall asleep while trying to keep it for the next 3 minutes :p). And then of course there’s the reward for doing certain events that leaves you wondering why did you even bothered to do it. And I don’t mean necessarily mean monetary rewards : some events leave you wondering “what was the point ? I didn’t learn anything, it wasn’t something new and exciting and it changed nothing”.

The platform is certainly in its infancy but it has tons of potential. When i talk about advancing the space and pioneering this area holds one of the core DNA components to creating a true living world and our dynamic events are something we are and will continue to build on. I will definitely talk more about this area or Colin will moving forward.

Chris

eekzie.5640:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

/respect

Also, I’m not sure if I should direct this onto you and the question is a bit outdated…

But I’ve felt a really strong resentment towards the Cutthroat Politics.
Mostly because the fractals were connected to something else to vote on.

To me it felt like you could vote on Spaghetti with Yoghurt or Curry dish with Soup.

I’m afraid that the choises the in game player base will get in the future will be a lot like this. Whereas people who simply don’t like yoghurt will now vote for the other combination. And I feel that it’s a very limited choise that way.

Could you perhaps share some of the philosophy behind that whole catastophy I call Cutthroat Politics?

We definitely listened to the feedback surrounding CP and were aware there would be some concern before we deployed the content. We weighed up the pros and cons and went with it.

We will be offering a lot more player choice moving forward but have certainly learnt lessons from CP. We want the players to not just shape the social aspects of Tyria but the world itself. This is a topic i can’t go into more detail on currently.

Chris

Sarrs.4831:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

And you toot the horn for people to do the same on spvp and wvw forums, I’m guessing, and those threads branch out from there? That sounds like it could work.

Throwing my chips in on the ‘collaborative design’; first things first, we really need to get access to your brains before launch day. This blow-by-blow dialogue we have in these last few pages is pretty solid. There was Josh Foreman talking about SAB W2 as well; that was great. This kind of dialogue really helps to show that there are people with real investment in the game on the other side, and it’s not just us.

I agree, please do understand though that part of the problem really has been a lack of time. We work at a break neck pace and as i have said we need to carve out more time to do that. So the speed at which i am posting now is extremely difficult for most and will be difficult for me to but what i am hoping is we can work to build a communication process that is great for all involved.

There have been many many times i have wanted to post and i would imagine this is the case for the devs to but finding the time to give it the attention it deserves and also getting the courage to do so has been difficult.

This is something i want us to get back to and in answer to the question of why did the communication cadence lower in the first place, it is simply down to how busy everyone has been. You can take it or leave it in terms of believing this but i am telling you it is the truth (-:

I am really excited about rebuilding the communications bridge and this conversation in general.

Chris

Volrath.1473:

hi Chris, first of all thank you so very much for taking the time to talk to us, it means the world to me.

The effort you are outing into this “protect” of creating a stable bridge of communication with the community is very important!

I will do my best to give clean feedback to you guys (although I sometimes get out of line)

Its just a shame that it took over a year for the construction of this bridge to start… Why not do this from the start? I’m mainly a PvP player and the pvp community in this game is unfortunately diminishing fast… I just wish you can do something about it fast and hope that it isn’t to late…

/respect

/respect

brick.2708:

Now ‘this’ is an interesting thread. I’ve been playing MMO’s for years now, and I’ve never seen the Devs get this close to the community. On one side I’m very pleased to see that the game is being made by human hands, rather than an all knowning computer who watches me while I sleep. But on the other side I can’t help but feel a little strange that my words might acually be listened to and concidered.

That said, I’d love to see a Community / Dev Team up thing happening. Maybe devs being invited to podcasts, or a Youtube discussion where 3 players and 3 devs take their standpoint on something and argue (respectfully) their cases.

I do have a question (which might not even fit here…) I read through this thread and saw a lot of: “Content only lasts for 2 weeks.”, “PvP & WvW needs more love.” and “Class balance” replies.
I instead am more of a solo player who enjoys PvE and getting immersed. If I were to bring up ideas and thoughts about immersion, roleplay, character development, lore or simple no life changing game mechanics, I fear that my plea might go unheard under the avalance of demand for the before mentioned topics.

Is Anet currently in a state where they are going to focus on the biggest issues at hand and try to resolve those first? (Which would be 100% fair) or is there a place for smaller aspects of the game to be improved on?

I still find this a very odd thread, but I am acually taking a liking to it. Not only do the Devs show that Anet is willing to listen, but I get a feeling that the Devs posting here, really are posting because there’s a passion driving them. Either to improve themselves as a person, or simply their love for the game.

We are always talking about and working on the areas you mentioned so it will absolutely be listened to. These areas are key to how we build Living Worlds moving forward.

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

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

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

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.
It’s slightly off topic, but would aid communication if workload is so high for the rest of the team.

Oh and don’t apologise for being a fellow Brit…but never use the word riffing again

Not apologizing for being a brit (-: Just pointing out the daily persecution i receive from my fellow developers (-:

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

Atlas.9704:

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 would be interesting at least. I’ll make the prediction right now that at least 20 posts will say something dealing with Cantha or Elona.

More than happy for any topics to be put forward. 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

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

Hi All,

I wanted to comment about the incident that happened recently in-game, surrounding some negative community interaction from a member of the ArenaNet staff.

Simply put a big mistake was made by one of our employees, for which he is both very upset and sorry. He allowed his personal feelings to affect his interactions in-game whilst representing ArenaNet, and this is absolutely unacceptable.

Like all players, we are human, and all have our opinions on the game. However these opinions should never disrupt other player’s enjoyment of the things they love. On top of this we have worked very hard to create a community that is respectful to one another, and for this behavior to have occurred while a developer is representing ArenaNet is doubly saddening.

We all cherish the opportunity to play with the community, and we absolutely rely on you all for in game feedback, and personally I hope that this incident does not hamper what has so far been an amazing relationship and opportunity for us all.

I would therefore like to sincerely apologize for this behavior on behalf of our staff member. We are taking steps to address the incident and for his part, he is very sorry for behaving in the manner in which he did.

Regarding Guild game play, please understand it is extremely important to us, and an area we are paying a great deal of attention to, so please do be patient with the developers who work tirelessly on making WvW the very best it can be, they have a great deal of respect for you all, and value your collaboration in pushing this pioneering mode forward. Also please note this member of staff is not on the WvW team.

Finally, World vs. World is a free-for-all battle. Our expectation of staff is that they should be playing, and enjoying the game like everyone else, and not being disruptive or disrespectful to others.

And in this spirit I hope we can move forward, and continue, what has up to this point, been a great community/developer relationship. One that I know our team massively values and loves.

Thank you all for your time and i hope you have a lovely weekend,

ChrisW

Huge Congrats BG! Well Done!

Hi All,

Thanks for your feedback. I am currently out of the office and return in the New Year, at which time i intend to do another Q and A with the community. In the interim rest assured that we constantly look at the forums, evaluate feedback, discuss opinions and work toward many of the issues and suggestions communicated therein. We very much appreciate both your feedback and support, as it is integral to the evolution of the game and our relationship with you all as a community of people that care very much about Guild Wars 2.

I am looking forward to getting the chance to connect with you all again soon. Until then i hope you are enjoying the Wintersday Celebrations and the holiday season in general.

Chris

morrolan.9608:

“Do you stand behind the decision of having the levelling system in FOTM, essentially fracturing your player base into many, many, different portions, with players only looking for the specific level they need to advance through level difficulty?
It was never a conscious decision to fracture the player base through the Dungeon. Honestly we were aware the dungeon was good but we didn’t know just how popular it would be. Nearly straight away we saw the issue and have been working on a fix since, we have explored multiple system”

Good on Chris for owning up to this issue but quite frankly I find this unbelievable. As soon as it was announced there were people on the forums stating that it was going to happen.

And the moral of this story is that i need to pay more attention to the feedback we are receiving. There is a great deal going on so a method of more open communication between the teams/design and the community would be great and I intend to work on how we can accomplish this.

Chris

Gab Superstar.4059:

“E9:There are no ways to repair inside of fractals aside from cash shop items, providing an inherent advantage to people who pay for advantages. Can this be fixed?

Well it certainly wasn’t designed to be a monetization resource, however i do see your point. We wanted to get rid of rez rushing and focus more on parties working together to not die and die less (-: We will continue to monitor the need for repair in the fractals and go from there.

Sorry if i am not giving more details here but this is something i would like to get metrics on.

Chris"

Who are you trying to fool here? THE MOMENT I saw the article about having a hub between 3 fractals where you could repair and sell items, the first thing that crossed my mind was that repair canisters were going to play a major role here.

You developed this content for 3 months, and you are telling me that the though NEVER CROSSED YOUR MIND?

What you are doing here is basically lying in the face of your players, and unfortunately for you it’s extraordinarily telling this time around.

Just wow…

Hi Gab Superstar,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I just wanted to take the time to correct some of your assumptions. Let me be very clear here:

‘At no point did we discuss or design lack of repair points in fractals to be a monetization gain for us.’

It may not be obvious to you (which is totally understandable) that this team is spinning many plates at a time and sometimes we miss things. So let me explain how we came to design there being no repair point in fractals:

- We wanted groups to win encounters through skill rather than blind force, therefore…
- We removed rez rushing. We removed way points and replaced them with checkpoints that could only be used when the whole group was down, this meant….
- That group members would spend more time keeping players alive resulting in less deaths. Should a group come across an encounter that is to hard…
- They would stop playing or spend the time to work out the encounter or both.
- We absolutely did not want players continually running into their deaths.
- The decision was therefore made that there was no need for repair points.

Due to a lot of things going on at once we did not realize that this could be seen as a cheap way to monetize our players and had we have thought of this (thanks to the original poster for bringing this to our attention) we would have/will look at the system and see if we can fix the issue with breaking any of the design pillars surrounding FotM.

I hope this sheds some light on the concern.

Chris

Hi All,

Thanks for your feedback we really appreciate it. I would like to take the opportunity to answer your questions in an AMA on Reddit on Monday 26th (12pm PST- More details to follow) to talk about recent updates to the game and our philosophy for Guild Wars 2 moving forward.

Please keep in mind that there we are about to begin the Thanksgiving holiday in the US and are out of the office (and likely in game) until Monday. Happy Holidays everyone!

Chris

I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.

Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.

Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores.

Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director