Guild Wars 2

Andred.1087:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

AnAspieKitten.5732:

-snip-

Hey Kitten,

I will reply shortly if that’s ok.

Chris

Gasp! How can you speak to players like that?

. (-:

Chris

Ohoni.6057:

Thanks for your reply. I was just talking about the design dev process primarily. We do have a QA team that tests the work and an Alpha group for feedback.

The process i described above is definitely not about speed (-: It is a quality iteration process as well as a best working practice that allows us to learn and improve the quality of the experience as we go along.

I will ask Ed Hocking our QA director to comment about the QA process and Gavian (our production director) to talk about production practices on Monday.

Once we have the feature ‘as designed’ i would love to chat about the design side of the release regarding NPE.

Phys is right. Whatever role your internal QA teams play in negotiating new feature changes, it can’t be enough given how many features go live that the players would never let you get away with. I mean, clearly the internal teams approved the April Trait changes and the Fall leveling changes, where if you’d asked the community about these “features” we’d have shot them down in a heartbeat and saved you who knows how many man-hours in implementing and subsequently un-implementing them.

I know that the NGE isn’t working “as intended” yet, and some of the community complaints are related to that, but many of them seem to be related to a genuine disagreement on intended elements, and since nobody from ANet is willing to give a breakdown as to which changes are bugs and which are “features,” we’re left treading water for now.

Hi Ohoni,

Still watching the game and then i am doing WvW after so sorry about the sporadic replies everyone else.

I wanted to comment on this :

‘but many of them seem to be related to a genuine disagreement on intended elements,’

I agree and that’s why i want us to get to the point where we can have a clear and focused discussion on ‘as intended design’ where we aren’t tripping over unintended issues. I feel that is the most valuable way to move forward.

Chris

AnAspieKitten.5732:

Hi,

First I want to say that I’m actually very impressed to have a thread where the devs are really answering without chosing one question out of a hundred, even taking some time off their sunday to do so, and I truly truly hope those threads are to be repeated in the future. You have built a playerbase that really care for the game as even through hate posts, even while they’re staying away for a while, players still look after the game, hoping it will grow more and in the right direction, because they care for it and know that it has a very particular potential. As such, I think listening to the fans is the best thing you can do and would make you a right sight better than the other studios.

Anyways, apologies if the exact same questions have already been answered, in which case feel free not to reply to the concerned questions ; I looked up what I could in the previous page, but it takes a lot of time and the forum search engine is kind of broken. So my questions are :

First, I’m a SAB lover, as many others. It has been pointed to me in other threads that future of SAB was unsure. The point was that it was not fitting the living story, which is not a valid point in my opinion as it could very well be bringed back as a festival or during a festival, or at any point really, people won’t care if it’s not well wrapped in a nice story, they just want to play it. ArenaNet’s hestiation about the subject makes me think World 3 is not a project for the foreseeable future ; is it true ?
Considering it does not, in any way, recquire multiple people to play it at the same time, would it appear to be doable to release it permanently, whether in Rata-Sum whether as an item (personnal instance, inventory, etc. doesn’t matter much) with the currently created worlds (1 & 2 for now and the other later on) and modes ? While disabling the rewards if that’s an issue (or maybe still allow players to gain token in tribulation mode given how hard and long it is especially for world 2 and it can only be used for soulbound stuff as far as I recall, something along the lines), just so players could play it for their own fun atleast?
And last but not least… can you tell us with more certitude than it has been done before what’s planned for SAB ? Even just the big lines. What I’d like to know, basically, is what’s gonna happen with SAB, if you guys plan on bringing it back every X months, during festivals or for it’s own festivals, or whatever I didn’t think of right now and more specifically where’s world 3 at (not started, finished, dead…) and what do you think about releasing it as proposed before a.k.a. as kitten…ble item in Rata-Sum or personnal instance, with only tribulation mode giving tokens for items that are only soulbound and can’t ever be traded for money, and are earned through time and hardship ? (which is just a proposition of course, you can adapt it in may other ways but that one would be, I think, the most satisfactoy and the least annoying to the economic market as there would be no prices drop).

I might also point out that the SAB skins were really, really earned, the few ones you could loot through RNG in normal mode set aside. Especially for world two which should honestly have been splitted in multiple parts for each level given how time consumming that one was (and how one dc due to wifi and whatever else would make you lose all the time invested). Having the time to unlock them properly wouldn’t be a shame, honestly, you can’t collect them just like that, it takes an investment, which is why I think that it would be much more healthy to do something along the lines of what I proposed rather than only release it for a few weeks every year, making it impossible to get all the skins you like, let alone all the skins, especially with more and more worlds. Once more, you can bring it back without having to include it in the LS, people just want to play their favorite (mini)game, they don’t mind it not having anything to do with slaying a dragon, just like they like the other festivals when they’re not included in the LS.

Also, could you explain more precisely what you think is a problem in NPE ?

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and thank you even more if you can actually answer some of those questions. I apologize for any mistakes I made as english isn’t my native language.

Have a nice day,

Edit : language filter didn’t appreciate us…ble.

Edit 2 : Oh, also, I feel a bit silly asking a question you’ve probable seen a hundred time, but… it was said early on, before the game was released I believe, that there will be new weapons coming out over time. Is it still a thing or has it been abandonned?, asks the cute kitty from my signature (a.k.a. me).

Hey Kitten,

I will reply shortly if that’s ok.

Chris

hi Phys,

By deployed i mean live yes.

Thanks for your reply. I was just talking about the design dev process primarily. We do have a QA team that tests the work and an Alpha group for feedback.

The process i described above is definitely not about speed (-: It is a quality iteration process as well as a best working practice that allows us to learn and improve the quality of the experience as we go along.

I will ask Ed Hocking our QA director to comment about the QA process and Gavian (our production director) to talk about production practices on Monday.

Once we have the feature ‘as designed’ i would love to chat about the design side of the release regarding NPE.

Hoep this helps.

Going to watch the game now.

Go Hawks!

Chris

Robert.4197:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Robert.4197:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Malkavian.4516:

Greetings, Chris

I just tried out the first few missions of Chapter 7, and I must say this: I am wholly unsatisfied with the new pacing the patch gave towards the Personal Story. I would be fine had you just consolidated certain episodes into chapters but still retained their original order. It just feels very messy to deal with to be honest with you and I would appreciate it if you would able to do the community had you can help in convincing the developers in fixing this as soon as possible. In addition to that, I already mentioned on a bug report relating to one other quest called “Romke’s Final Voyage” where I hear no voice coming from the characters in the cinematic NOR did I see any mouths opening when they were supposed to speak.

I beg of you, please help us out here in making sure that this message comes across. I am personally okay with the level gating of skills and the need to do 10 levels before proceeding to the next chapter of the story. But doing the old switcharoo on certain episodes to favor a different approach just doesn’t work unless you guys actually made serious changes to those episodes so that they can be tied together more seamlessly.

That’s all I got for now. Thanks so much.

Hi Malk,

First of all thanks very much for all of your info. We have actually been using your posts to investigate (or rather Leah and her team has).

Secondly and just to be clear in case it isn’t. I am not a customer service rep, I am a developer and thus you are talking directly to the team.

Finally I will have more info for you Monday or perhaps Leah will post. Either way we will be in touch. Thanks for your support and have a great weekend.

Chris

To Chris ( or anyone else that can answer this),

In no way am I trying to be rude here but just trying to get a better ideal of how things work. What exactly does a studio design director do? Is that the same thing as a studio game director? I ask because I figure you somehow “direct” the game, so I would think you should know what goes in to the game and for what reasons. Every time someone asks a question, you have to go get answers. Also, it seems like you guys have meetings every day. I know you can’t disclose what you discuss in those meetings but I would hope it’s about what’s going on with the game. I realize just because one dev does something, doesn’t mean everyone knows how to do it or what’s going on. For example, the people that create game models may have no idea how to write a story. Anyway, as far as I know, you are part of upper management and a director, if you don’t know what’s being added/changed in the game, maybe communication needs to be better and your daily meetings a bit more informative. Again, not trying to be rude so I apologize if it comes off that way. I thank you for taking the time to communicate with us, I really appreciate it.

Thanks,

Robert

Hi Robert,

I won’t go into all the details of my job as it could take a while and be a little boring.

As the Studio Design Director I am responsible for the health, professional growth and design acumen of the Game Design and Game Director teams. I am also responsible for the game design quality/experience of everything that comes out of the studio. As the studio director i am also responsible for long term strategy planning of the studio and its overall health as well as other areas.

I am 100% aware of any design changes that go live and up to date on most other discipline focused changes to this environment. This is because we review content right from written design phase all the way to iterative reviews to deployment.

However in regard to NPE it is not currently functioning as designed and therefore it is very hard to have a conversation about it. Thus we are working on fixes and once they are deployed I am really looking forward to a discussion.

Hope this helps,

Chris

P.S: I didn’t think you were rude at all.

Thank you for taking the time to respond:)

No problem Robert thanks for taking the time to post.

Taking the boys for a bike ride. Be back soon.

Chris

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Zoso.8279:

4411kittenris Whiteside.6102:

Go Hawks!

Seahawks? They will be almost unstoppable this season.

Yep the Seahawks (-:

Chris

Sorry, still going to quietly root for the Browns to the Super Bowl.

I know it won’t ever happen but that’s what I said about a lot of other things which since happened.

On topic: did we have an idea whether the guild halls would be open world, instanced areas . . . ?

We can discuss that in the next phase (-:

Chris

Zoso.8279:

4411kittenris Whiteside.6102:

Go Hawks!

Seahawks? They will be almost unstoppable this season.

Yep the Seahawks (-:

Chris

Go Hawks!

Devata.6589:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Do we feel like we have much more to discuss on current QOL and Logistics in regard to existing guild features etc?

If we do that’s cool. Just thinking about when to do a summary and closing discussion on this phase before moving onto Guild Halls.

Chris

Well so far is has been more about listing suggestions then really discussing them.

Is there also a summary of all suggestions coming?

Agreed Devata. I am planning to do a summary as I currently have a 2 hour block of free time tomorrow afternoon. After that we should discuss the poitns and then i will put a proposal forward for this area and we can move on. Sound good?

Chris

P.S: If anyone loves doing summaries please feel free to go ahead as this would save some time and I will send you some goodies!!!. Jut bullet points with a description of the key ideas put forward for QOL and Logistics.
P.P.S: If no one has time then I am happy to do it tomorrow.

Go Hawks!

Maxwell.7843:

Hello Chris.
Would it be possible for someone from the team to take a look at the feedback in the Warrior forum, please?

To sum it up, many people feel that the adrenaline decay outside of combat make the warrior’s profession mechanic unusable. I believe it’s true. That’s because you end up being “out of combat” even if you are actually surrounded by foes.

One of the suggestions was to make the adrenaline decay start only if you stay out of combat for X seconds, so that you have time to get to the next enemy without an empty bar. It was also suggested to decrease the rate of decay a bit.

While I do realize that a lot of people complain when there are balance changes, I do honestly and wholeheartedly believe that the Warrior players have a point.

I’m NOT saying “omg now the [insert profession] can reset the fight it’s so unfair”, what I’m saying is “I think I understand what you guys did, but the concrete result is that burst skills now are broken”.
I am not asking to go back to the previous system, just to rework the decay rate out of combat.
I don’t believe it’s working as intended, because no profession should be locked out of their mechanic. I assume the goal was to prevent the warriors from carrying a full bar of adrenaline long outside of combat, and I agree, but we went from one extreme to another extreme.
If a Warrior is in a combat situation (which doesn’t mean “in combat”), he should be able to retain his adrenaline. The easiest way is to introduce an X seconds timer (for example 10 seconds) before the decay starts.

Thank you for your attention.

PS: I know that Mesmers have the same issue with loosing their clones; I don’t know that profession, but in the interest of fairness I think they should have a similar chance.

PPS: I’m one of those people who were very saddened about the disappearance of part of the personal story (the “greatest fear” storyline), so thank you for looking into that too.

Chap might reply to this. I play a warrior (PVT Shout Heal) and to be honest and quite happy with the changes. He knows more than I about balance however so i will bring it up with him tomorrow morning.

Chris

blackoil.2673:

ANet: I really believe you.

But the only problem is that it really feels like you’re ignoring the playerbase. Posts that have so many people posting about an issue to the game… it feels like it’s being ignored because no dev is participating.

I can understand that you can’t participate in it, for all the reasons you said… but wouldn’t be any way to flag a post as “Hey, we’re reading it and we’re talking about it back here”?

From my point of view and by now, I only see these posts as the ones that have the ANet tag in it (i.e., a dev made a reply).

edit: Or at least, when you make the decision that you won’t change a thing because all the playerbase has gone crazy… just tell it?

This has been put forward many times and i think it could be useful. i will bring it up again with the community team.

Thanks,

Chris

Robert.4197:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Malkavian.4516:

Greetings, Chris

I just tried out the first few missions of Chapter 7, and I must say this: I am wholly unsatisfied with the new pacing the patch gave towards the Personal Story. I would be fine had you just consolidated certain episodes into chapters but still retained their original order. It just feels very messy to deal with to be honest with you and I would appreciate it if you would able to do the community had you can help in convincing the developers in fixing this as soon as possible. In addition to that, I already mentioned on a bug report relating to one other quest called “Romke’s Final Voyage” where I hear no voice coming from the characters in the cinematic NOR did I see any mouths opening when they were supposed to speak.

I beg of you, please help us out here in making sure that this message comes across. I am personally okay with the level gating of skills and the need to do 10 levels before proceeding to the next chapter of the story. But doing the old switcharoo on certain episodes to favor a different approach just doesn’t work unless you guys actually made serious changes to those episodes so that they can be tied together more seamlessly.

That’s all I got for now. Thanks so much.

Hi Malk,

First of all thanks very much for all of your info. We have actually been using your posts to investigate (or rather Leah and her team has).

Secondly and just to be clear in case it isn’t. I am not a customer service rep, I am a developer and thus you are talking directly to the team.

Finally I will have more info for you Monday or perhaps Leah will post. Either way we will be in touch. Thanks for your support and have a great weekend.

Chris

To Chris ( or anyone else that can answer this),

In no way am I trying to be rude here but just trying to get a better ideal of how things work. What exactly does a studio design director do? Is that the same thing as a studio game director? I ask because I figure you somehow “direct” the game, so I would think you should know what goes in to the game and for what reasons. Every time someone asks a question, you have to go get answers. Also, it seems like you guys have meetings every day. I know you can’t disclose what you discuss in those meetings but I would hope it’s about what’s going on with the game. I realize just because one dev does something, doesn’t mean everyone knows how to do it or what’s going on. For example, the people that create game models may have no idea how to write a story. Anyway, as far as I know, you are part of upper management and a director, if you don’t know what’s being added/changed in the game, maybe communication needs to be better and your daily meetings a bit more informative. Again, not trying to be rude so I apologize if it comes off that way. I thank you for taking the time to communicate with us, I really appreciate it.

Thanks,

Robert

Hi Robert,

I won’t go into all the details of my job as it could take a while and be a little boring.

As the Studio Design Director I am responsible for the health, professional growth and design acumen of the Game Design and Game Director teams. I am also responsible for the game design quality/experience of everything that comes out of the studio. As I studio director i am also responsible for long term strategy planning of the studio and its overall health as well as other areas.

I am 100% aware of any design changes that go live and up to date on most other discipline focused changes to this environment. This is because we review content right from written design phase all the way to iterative reviews to deployment.

However in regard to NPE it is not currently functioning as designed and therefore it is very hard to have a conversation about it. Thus we are working on fixes and once they are deployed I am really looking forward to a discussion.

Hope this helps,

Chris

P.S: I didn’t think you were rude at all.

Stiofan.6720:

Hi Chris, Thanks for the responses, It’s really nice seeing more dev coverage on the forums, I don’t think it always has to be the main devs themselves commenting on posts all day whenever they have free time, Sort of like that other person was suggesting, that isn’t really fair. I was hoping we could see more of the community managers on the forums, I know there’s the french community manager called Stéphane Lo Presti. I’m not sure if he has counter-parts for NA etc but if he does I’ve never seen any posts from them in 2 years. I think it was Gaile Grey in gw1, what about creating one for gw2 if there is none.

Hi Stiofan,

We are working on increased personnel to meet our goal of a better connection with the community. You should see some news soon.

Chris

Pixels.6532:

If you guys released an expansion… that would bring a bunch of my guildies back to the game and really improve the quality of my life… you know, in game.

o.O

Hey Pixels,

Your post made me smile. Very clever and a fun way to get your feedback across. This said let’s try to stay on topic please (-: which as you know is QOL and the logistics of guilds based on the game.

Chris

P.S: Cool Name!

Do we feel like we have much more to discuss on current QOL and Logistics in regard to existing guild features etc?

If we do that’s cool. Just thinking about when to do a summary and closing discussion on this phase before moving onto Guild Halls.

Chris

Donari.5237:

Chris, I may have missed it — did you do that list of CDI game impacts yet? (no pressure, just don’t want to miss it due to distraction once it’s up).

Hi Donari,

I haven’t done it yet. Part being very busy and part not wanting it to distract focus on the CDI.

Should have time next week. Just depends if folks are happy to wait until after this CDI or during.

Chris

FYI folks the next phase will be all about Guild Halls and we will start early next week.

So feel free to continue to discuss QOL and Logistics of guilds with Guild Halls being an excellent segue into the next phase.

Chris

Hi Folks,

I have been out with the family and am just catching up now and then doing some WvW.

FYI several designers are also reading this thread currently as well.

Chris

Malkavian.4516:

Greetings, Chris

I just tried out the first few missions of Chapter 7, and I must say this: I am wholly unsatisfied with the new pacing the patch gave towards the Personal Story. I would be fine had you just consolidated certain episodes into chapters but still retained their original order. It just feels very messy to deal with to be honest with you and I would appreciate it if you would able to do the community had you can help in convincing the developers in fixing this as soon as possible. In addition to that, I already mentioned on a bug report relating to one other quest called “Romke’s Final Voyage” where I hear no voice coming from the characters in the cinematic NOR did I see any mouths opening when they were supposed to speak.

I beg of you, please help us out here in making sure that this message comes across. I am personally okay with the level gating of skills and the need to do 10 levels before proceeding to the next chapter of the story. But doing the old switcharoo on certain episodes to favor a different approach just doesn’t work unless you guys actually made serious changes to those episodes so that they can be tied together more seamlessly.

That’s all I got for now. Thanks so much.

Hi Malk,

First of all thanks very much for all of your info. We have actually been using your posts to investigate (or rather Leah and her team has).

Secondly and just to be clear in case it isn’t. I am not a customer service rep, I am a developer and thus you are talking directly to the team.

Finally I will have more info for you Monday or perhaps Leah will post. Either way we will be in touch. Thanks for your support and have a great weekend.

Chris

Blude.6812:

Not really asking for a time frame.
Just asking for some “communication with you” in the bug forum. As I said a simple ‘yes we know’ and it’s on our to do list would be be fine. But totally ignoring it —not so fine.

Hi Blude,

We are not ignoring it all. We are aware and will update Monday.

Thanks for raising it to my attention.

Chris

Hey folks just a reminder that i will be playing WvW this evening so I will likely not be on the forums.

chris

Zesbeer.8365:

Thorzilla.9124:

Excuse my utter ignorance, but what does CDI stand for?

Collaborative development I- I don’t remember but think its initiative

Correct (-:

Hey folks just a reminder that i will be playing WvW this evening so I will likely not be on the forums.

chris

I will be fighting for Helioz [Hel] and on loan to CERN tonight on TC.

There will be blood!

Chris

FYI my main guild is AARM (They just don’t do much WvW)

Right I am going to be afk for a bit FYI.

Chris

Apokriphos.7042:

Hey Chris,

We really appreciate you responding so frequently in these forums, even to negative posts. Communication is always a good thing, and I really dont think anyone else has responded to player concerns as much as you.

What are your thoughts on current Class Balance in Dungeons, sPvp, and 5 man roaming WvW?

Are there any plans to make classes that lack group utility useful in these game modes? Perhaps more frequent balancing, as in GW1?

Hi Apok,

I will ask some better informed folks to chip in and have a discussion with you.

Cheers

chris

skullmount.1758:

Chris,

First, thanks for all the replying you’re doing. I really hope those changes in forum personnel come soon, so we can get even more answers.

Any thoughts on all the other NPE changes (not level gated changes), but changes to the starting zones?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/What-did-you-do-to-Metrica-Province/first

I’m sure I’m not the only one that would like to hear a reason behind these changes.

Hi Skull,

We are currently fixing some bugs associated with the content. Once it is as designed we will be discussing the content. That way we can have a clear dialogue about about the feature.

chris

Piogre.2164:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I think small guilds would Ally . WvW guilds would. And potentially for PVE content to with larger guilds. And WvW alliances with pve guilds. I have been adopted by a WvW Zerg Smashing guild called Helioz on TC and they wanted to ally with a PVE guild to do the content.

Depends on how progression is distributed and the communication channels etc.

Chris

Hey, I know Helioz. Back when I was on SOR (and they were, too) my old, now-dormant guild used to team up with them and another guild to take out some of the tougher guild challenges together- each week we’d all help each other with the challenges, puzzles, etc.

On that note, one feature which would really help a guild alliance system would be the ability to share a guild mission- this would be really beneficial for guilds which are smaller or have lower guild mission attendance.

Really looking forward to the reset tonight and playing with them.

Chris

Malkavian.4516:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Malkavian.4516:

Hi Chris, I was fortunate enough to check the instance in question that I mentioned to you about and it seems that the Greatest Fear portion of the story A Light in the Darkness is kept intact. No removals, no nothing. It was only modified on the Story Journal itself, which I still think sucks but nonetheless, I can confirm that the PS was not cut in anyway, shape or form.

Awesome Malkavian I really appreciate the info. Leah is looking into it and we will update when we have more info.

chris

Alright, I think I may have jumped the gun with what I said earlier. It seems that the issue lies in Chapter 7. Those who are in the middle of the quests related to their greatest fears in this case, Tonn and Apatia’s and your other quest were apparently skipped as a side effect of the consolidation of quests into chapters. Either way, please keep us posted.

Will do.

Probably an update Monday if you don’t mind. Super busy today.

chris

Jerus.4350:

Chris any comment on the group/dungeon stealing issue?

I have spoken to a friend at work and he is investigating. I expect I will have something to report on monday.

Chris

Vyetta.3976:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Malkavian.4516:

Hi Chris, I was fortunate enough to check the instance in question that I mentioned to you about and it seems that the Greatest Fear portion of the story A Light in the Darkness is kept intact. No removals, no nothing. It was only modified on the Story Journal itself, which I still think sucks but nonetheless, I can confirm that the PS was not cut in anyway, shape or form.

Awesome Malkavian I really appreciate the info. Leah is looking into it and we will update when we have more info.

chris

Unfortunately the event is still scrambled or totally missing for most of us, please don’t ignore it thank you so much, it feels so much better to feel this getting some acknowledgement

We are absolutely not going to ignore it FYI.

we will have more info soon.

chris

Keysha.2815:

To go back to the original title of this thread, I’d like to suggest that when a thread hits 4 or 5 pages, someone on the Anet team make it a point to go in and comment? Then, if it is a VERY busy thread (hello, traits?), come in once a day to keep up and respond once, at least? As it slows down, make it every 2-3 days, then taper it off. But a thread like this, where it is a bigger one, and Chris is being so active in it, really goes a long way towards soothing the waters. Smaller threads could be a “catch as catch can”, or a “post if it looks interesting” type of thing.

I just know that the longer, and busier the thread, and the less of an Anet presence there is, the hotter tempers get, and the higher the frustration level.

Hi Keysha,

We should have more forum coverage very soon (-:

chris

Malkavian.4516:

Hi Chris, I was fortunate enough to check the instance in question that I mentioned to you about and it seems that the Greatest Fear portion of the story A Light in the Darkness is kept intact. No removals, no nothing. It was only modified on the Story Journal itself, which I still think sucks but nonetheless, I can confirm that the PS was not cut in anyway, shape or form.

Awesome Malkavian I really appreciate the info. Leah is looking into it and we will update when we have more info.

chris

Morning folks,

Thanks for the chat last night it was a lot of fun. Just to let you know I am very busy all day and am doing WvW tonight so I might not be posting until tomorrow. I will do my best though. Meanwhile I am catching up.

Chris

wwwes.1398:

At this point, I think we really really would benefit from somebody that can sort of compile and consolidate the points being made. I am currently on lunch break from work or else I’d do this myself.

I will try and do a summary this weekend.

chris

Morning All,

Great conversation last night. Just letting you know I am catching up but I am in meetings all day and will be playing WvW tonight so i don’t know how long i will have to post today. I will do my best.

chris

Right good night peeps. Thanks for the chat. Hopefully i will have some time to join in again tomorrow.

Chris

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Iason Evan.3806:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Iason Evan.3806:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Iason Evan.3806:

Separate tabs for chat that show a number in a bracket for how many comments there have been in that tab since you last looked at it.

So the chat tab would look like:

• | Combat | All | Random Guild Name[RNDM](4) | Other Random Guild [RnDm](15)

It is still a drop down window though, as apposed to a click.

Specifically: | Random Guild Name[RNDM](4) |

Unless i am not understanding your design.

Chris

Think of that garbage diagram I threw out there as the top of the chat window and each of those is a tab. the number in brackets (4) is the number of messages that has been typed since you last looked at it. You click the tab to view those. Kinda like how Twitter works when you have it in a browser window you arent looking at. It would say Twitter(24) meaning there were 24 tweets you havent seen yet since you last looked at that particular page.

Yep so an extra click. We can do better than that (-:

Chris

Fair enough. As long as I get my guild Message of the Day in the chat window, I am ok with whatever

Sold to, Mr or Mrs Iason Eva (-:

Chris

P.S: Have a good night to, I think I will do the same. Thanks for a fun chat tonight folks.

Chris

Iason Evan.3806:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Iason Evan.3806:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Iason Evan.3806:

Separate tabs for chat that show a number in a bracket for how many comments there have been in that tab since you last looked at it.

So the chat tab would look like:

• | Combat | All | Random Guild Name[RNDM](4) | Other Random Guild [RnDm](15)

It is still a drop down window though, as apposed to a click.

Specifically: | Random Guild Name[RNDM](4) |

Unless i am not understanding your design.

Chris

Think of that garbage diagram I threw out there as the top of the chat window and each of those is a tab. the number in brackets (4) is the number of messages that has been typed since you last looked at it. You click the tab to view those. Kinda like how Twitter works when you have it in a browser window you arent looking at. It would say Twitter(24) meaning there were 24 tweets you havent seen yet since you last looked at that particular page.

Yep so an extra click. We can do better than that (-:

Chris

Fair enough. As long as I get my guild Message of the Day in the chat window, I am ok with whatever

Sold to, Mr or Mrs Iason Eva (-:

Chris

Blaeys.3102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I agree with everything you are saying. I am simply stating that persistence is fun (-:

Chris

That sounds great to me, as long as the individual guilds can retain their original identity – for example, the small family guild I mention would be against an overly formal alliance because it would potentially expose the children in that guild to a large number of strangers (which is understandable).

With all of what’s been said in mind, Yaya’s suggestion regarding shared or saved progression – that advances a larger alliance (with unique perks and unlockables) – seems like a really great idea.

The tricks would be implementing that progression without using a system that puts one guild above the other – and implementing a system that allows for multiple alliances between divergent guilds (basically, my guild would possibly want to be in three unique alliances with the three guilds I mention above – based on the activities we share with each).

Of course, to make things even harder, the system would need to be simple to understand and implement.

Of course it would (-:

Problems are the fuel of evolution though, so I am all in!

Chris

Iason Evan.3806:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Iason Evan.3806:

Separate tabs for chat that show a number in a bracket for how many comments there have been in that tab since you last looked at it.

So the chat tab would look like:

• | Combat | All | Random Guild Name[RNDM](4) | Other Random Guild [RnDm](15)

It is still a drop down window though, as apposed to a click.

Specifically: | Random Guild Name[RNDM](4) |

Unless i am not understanding your design.

Chris

Think of that garbage diagram I threw out there as the top of the chat window and each of those is a tab. the number in brackets (4) is the number of messages that has been typed since you last looked at it. You click the tab to view those. Kinda like how Twitter works when you have it in a browser window you arent looking at. It would say Twitter(24) meaning there were 24 tweets you havent seen yet since you last looked at that particular page.

Yep so an extra click. We can do better than that (-:

Chris

Iason Evan.3806:

Separate tabs for chat that show a number in a bracket for how many comments there have been in that tab since you last looked at it.

So the chat tab would look like:

• | Combat | All | Random Guild Name[RNDM](4) | Other Random Guild [RnDm](15)

It is still a drop down window though, as apposed to a click.

Specifically: | Random Guild Name[RNDM](4) |

Unless i am not understanding your design.

Chris

Ailse.8190:

Hi Chris,

I agree the proposal does add to complexity, I’m sorry I should have added that as a separate risk.

I’ll go and edit the post.

No need Ailse it is all part of the brainstorming process. Kudos to you for getting involved in the CDI.

Chris

Darmikau.9413:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hey Phys,

What about folks knowing the plot of Living World for example and leaking it?

Chris

One of the advantages of having a large boxed expansion with a strong narrative and design focus with a complete plot, in addition to all the other benefits it brings.

Indeed.

Chris

Blaeys.3102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hey Blaeys,

But what about the awesomeness of rocking an alliance over a period of time that is famous for killing it in WvW or Legendary Bosses or PvP that you would lose if i am understanding you correctly?

Chris

here is where the idea is coming from, to (hopefully) make things clearer.

I lead a decent sized PvX of about 350 members (with daily activity being around 50-70 members logging on). We have what I think of as informal alliances with three other other guilds on our server – one that is dedicated to WvW, one that is made up primarily of APAC players and one that is a small guild of real life family/friends that want to remain small because they have young children playing in their guild.

While I would love shared chat channels with these three guilds, I could easily see how it would get out of hand, so I wanted to think about it from a “what do we do together as guilds” point of view.

We work with these other three guilds in five different ways:

1. When the WvW guild needs support and we arent doing anything as a guild, we have a large number of members hop into their Teamspeak and follow their lead.

2. When members of the primarily APAC guild have to miss their guild mission night, we have a standing arrangement that they can come to ours (and vice versa). Additionally, officers from each guild agree to help out if the other guild is short of people in a given week.

3. The APAC guild and the faimly guild both have permission to use our custom guild pvp arena (which is technically mine, but it is kept running by donations from the guild) – and we set aside one night every other week for fun 3v3 deathmatch tournaments in the courtyard.

4. The family guild leads a “themed” wvw night (all minion master, all asura, etc) one night each week that we like to participate in.

5. Officers of all guilds often whisper back and forth whenever their guild is doing anything that takes larger numbers, so alot of adhoc groups form.

The point of spelling all this out is to illustrate what I think alliances should be trying to support. The trick is drawing the line between guild and cross-guild activities. For that reason, rather than seeing a shared chat channel that is active 100 percent of the time, Im more interested in tools that could make events like the ones I list above easier to coordinate and support between the guilds involved more fluid.

My first instinct was to look at making alliances event focused rather than chat focused. That may not be the best solution – and maybe shared chat is the answer (if the logistics can be worked out). Personally, though, if alliances are introduced, I would like to see them implemented around a toolbox of functions (such as shared resources and event triggers) that offer something more than just another chat option.

The idea of inviting other guilds to participate in my guild’s activities, most notably guild missions, really appeals to me (as does the idea of them inviting my guild to theirs ). That large scale organization between guilds is how I would define an “alliance.” The more tools we have to do that, the better the experience for all involved.

I agree with everything you are saying. I am simply stating that persistence is fun (-:

Chris

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

There are big advantages to a PTR I agree. However lets save it for a CDI because it is quite complex.

Chris

Are you suggesting one of those is incoming with that topic? I’ll have to rope my brother into talking with me about his experiences on PTRs.

If you all want to. NPE discussion first though (-:

Chris

Ben K.6238:

Ailse.8190:

2) Sell additional guild slots as account upgrades

Have to admit I’d actually pay for that.

It makes everything more complex though!

Chris

Yaya.5984:

I like this idea. I don’t think the experiences the allied guilds share should be lost though. If guild x joins guild y for a dungeon, then joins guild z for some WvW, then re-allies with guild x for another dungeon the next day-all 3 guilds gain merit and achievement points. Perhaps there can be tiers to the alliance, and the more times guilds ally with other specific guilds, and the more diversity in events they share- the higher the shared guild buffs and bonuses become.

Yep shared progression is a cool idea.

Chris

Ben K.6238:

So rather than showing every guildchat at once, the active tab selects which one? If there’s a highlight on the tab showing when new lines have arrived for each one that could work.

Exactly.

+ this is very clever:

‘If there’s a highlight on the tab showing when new lines have arrived for each one that could work’

Chris

Ben K.6238:

Only other thing that comes to mind is hiding old lines from the same channel after 3-5 lines, depending on the number of channels they’re mixing with. Might be possible to toss in an integer field next to the display setting to set the number as well.

What about colored tabs you could switch between that would merge into the chat channel?

Chris