Guild Wars 2

Arghore.8340:

With the details of the Chinese version of the game and the Royal system, something just snapped. For me it is clear this isn’t the ANet I supported for 7-8years, nor is it the GuildWars game with high ideals that I fell in love with over 7 years ago…

Today I simply feel like my GF broke up after a 7y relationship as I found out she has been cheating on me. We had fun, shared hardship in those 7y, we didn’t always see eye to eye, but we were always able to compromise and find a solution that fit us both. Now though, she is ready to move on, all that we had doesn’t seem important to her anymore. And while I can see that this new guy is just some jerk with more money then me, she seems hopelessly in love with the idea of getting more expensive yet hollow presents. It’s more then clear this jerk will dump her when something he thinks is better comes along, and while I was there to support and pick her up when a setback came along her path, I doubt I will be able to do so ‘as a friend’ in the future. She choose this new route and so she will have to deal with what ever comes along with it…

I never knew a game could do this to me, let alone ‘outside’ of the game. But I feel like crying… :’(

Same here

I’m seriously at a point where i just don’t care anymore… It’s completely disappointing that my thoughts about the game and anet have crumbled after almost 9 years of playing. It’s kinda like loosing your best friend because he went insane… I definitely got my 60 bucks worth, but i know i’ve dumped at least 1000 bucks in the gem store and WAY more on our server community. It’s all just very disheartening.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

munkiman.3068:

I personally think these are shallow changes, you guys know what people want GvG/guild halls (which don’t fit in these categories). I think enhanced statistics through the API would be a good start, but that is so outside the game it’s not even funny. I hate to beat a dead horse, but you should know by now what guilds want, I mean there are a million posts on what can be done to improve the guild experience. I have sadface why we are focusing on these 2 things… This is feedback on our community BTW.

I love your enthusiasm Chris, i just hate that it’s so “hands tied”. Thought of or idealized features are so far removed from the game at this point… It’s an uphill battle.

It isn’t hands tied at all. We are doing this in multiple phases discussing multiple areas of guild functionality and content.

might be worth reading the thread.

Chris

I understand that, i was speaking about this particular topic. I think it’s mostly not the type of features players really want IMHO. The API suggestion would be nice, and some of the guild tools could be improved, but the meat of guild changes are typically GvG, Guild Halls, more puzzles and missions and Raids. Stuff that requires a lot more work (i imagine). It just seems like those things (while up for discussion in a CDI) are just so far away from being implemented.

I personally think these are shallow changes, you guys know what people want GvG/guild halls (which don’t fit in these categories). I think enhanced statistics through the API would be a good start, but that is so outside the game it’s not even funny. I hate to beat a dead horse, but you should know by now what guilds want, I mean there are a million posts on what can be done to improve the guild experience. I have sadface why we are focusing on these 2 things… This is feedback on our community BTW.

I love your enthusiasm Chris, i just hate that it’s so “hands tied”. Thought of or idealized features are so far removed from the game at this point… It’s an uphill battle.

Proposal Overview:
Give us the API options that were proposed before release. Authentication and the like so we can manage guilds, rosters information (like guild messaging) outside ofthe game

Goal of Proposal:
Giving guild leaders and officers the ability to deal with things outside of the game, let us build the required way to handle the information. Track players and so on. All guild information should be able to be shared outside the game.

Proposal Functionality:
You cater to casual players, most of us have jobs and extremely busy schedules, we’d really like a way to manage guilds outside of the game.

Associated Risks:
The only risk involved would be what people can hack through and completely mess up a guild, but if can be minimized by only allowing “certified” participants. If twitter and facebook can do this, I’m sure Arena could too.

Ashen.2907:

I am not making assumptions.

I am saying that providing early access to market affecting information to participants in that market in the hope that they will take care of public dissemination for you, particularly when a neutral information distribution system is in place, is not a good option for public release.

This is true for any item sold ever, in RL markets. If the Times posted an article claiming your favorite item, one you buy all the time, is seeing a shortage and the price will likely go up, wouldn’t you just go out and buy up stock in that item to save you money down the road if you can? Or do they need to post all that info in a billboard somewhere so it’s more public?

This is actually a VERY highly controlled market, people get kittened more in RL markets than they ever will in a video game market. All anyone has to do is a google search once a day and get informed. I’m often the first one to call foul here, but this is just blatantly silly. Arguably, everyone has a much more equal jump on the market when the info is released before the patch, since you wouldn’t be hindered if you had a slow internet connection to D/L the patch. I mean they even posted these sources on facebook, twitter and even talked about it on twitch… I’m not sure what else anyone expects them to do?

Ashen.2907:

John Smith.4610:

I’ve actually commented on this more than once, but recently:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/I-have-a-question-about-the-economy/page/12#post4376858

I do not consider it insider trading once the information is released to the public in any form.

Releasing the information to privately operated information dissemination clearinghouses who have the option to control release to the public is not a release to the public at large. This is particularly the case in situations where the very individuals to whom the information was provided were in a position of conflict of interest because they are participants in the market for which they were provided early access to market influencing information.

I do not think that providing an individual, or a few individuals, early access to market information constitutes a release to the public. If it did then it would be acceptable for me to provide you with information regarding my publicly traded employer in order for you to profit from it because telling you would constitute public disclosure.

Would you consider it insider trading, in a real world sense, to give inside information to an individual, a member of the public, who had the option to profit from the information himself, or provide it to others of his choice, before making the information available to the public at large ?

Are you assuming those that got a hands-on preview are the ones that blew up the prices on some of that stuff? I’m pretty sure Johns response covered that, that is not the case, and that it’s been handled before and will likely be handled again.

People watched publicly released information, available to anyone and not tucked away in a safe or behind greasing palms. This isn’t exactly a new thing they did either, it was completely the case last feature pack and sometimes just reading the dat notes that_shaman posts would give people a slightly more educated risk at a certain market.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

munkiman.3068:

sirflamesword.3896:

John Smith.4610:

I’ve actually commented on this more than once, but recently:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/I-have-a-question-about-the-economy/page/12#post4376858

I do not consider it insider trading once the information is released to the public in any form.

Thanks for the big middle finger, but that’s about right coming from you.

Insider trading happens for a limited few. This info was released publicly in multiple locations, everyone had an equal opportunity at getting a leg up on profits.

“everyone” = people who follow 1 of the 3 “special access” people that are allowed to play patches a week ahead of the rest of u…

The information is/was public. It doesn’t matter how many sources, if you follow the market at all, you’ll always do better than people that don’t. This is true in just about any RL situation you can think of. The more you know

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Daggos Skelito.2910:

How hard, (in five days) would it be to add a very simple math function? Sure would put the icing on this sweet update.

The UI redesign would be the longer part. Even though that would just mean moving the sell and cancel buttons down a bit and sticking a net profit line between them and the total price.

You do know this is a website, right? I mean a bunch of us are coders, seriously, we do this stuff in our sleep sometimes. I actually do a TON of translations too. I mean how hard is this?

This feels like the commander tag all over again… Geesh they cant win for losing. Who’s going to work the weekend to make this happen?

Stormdancer.4972:

Serenity.6149:

This has been a long time coming.

I have to wonder why they waited 2 years to release improved/relevant filters that would take a fraction of a day to code.

You should definitely consider applying for a job there.

It’s definitely not the top of the list to fix. Look they released in China, a lot of the things they thought were missing from release in EU/NA… That’s bottom line for all of us. which is totally fine, but i think us questioning WTH they decided, is or is not out of our realm of idealism is questionable at this point.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Curtis Johnson.8456:

We felt it was important when selling something to know exactly what price your buyer was going to see. The change also is the least cluttered way to address feedback we received previously about profit including / not including fees and wanting to be as clear as possible on the order of operations.

We’re balancing a lot of UX design against desire for more information with the new UI.. We’ll be watching to see what sort of confusion comes out of this and may or may not re-introduce a net profit display later.

For me, the net profit is the most important value. What possible benefit is there for leaving it out ?

The order of operations doesn’t matter if the final result is displayed.

What possible reason is there for making this aspect worse by making us have to do more math in our heads ?

This is pretty much my biggest “problem” with updates like this. While i think the revamp is stellar, there is still a couple key features either removed or that are still missing. It’s like everything we get comes with some sort of caveat, and seriously, for a video game, there is just too kitten much of them.

1. show the profit, period, make it happen, people have been asking for this, just do it.
2. sell immediate should absolutely not include a listing fee, there is absolutely no function reason for it.

Regardless, i think the work you did, to a web page none-the-less is stellar, you still might need to rethink who’s in charge of this. I can code this in a day. I bet 100% it doesn’t fix the “error in attempting to sell”. That is server side and we will always get that based on volume.

I mean come on, there are people that write API interfaces that do better.

I’d like to thank anet for these improvements, while there are some questionable things here (projected profit being removed WTHBBQ?). I think overall they are trying to fix the base game, which IMHO is very much needed before anyone can talk expansion.

I personally think a lot of these features are things they really wanted to do, things that needed to be fixed, things people asked for. But (and there is always a but), we do need content to keep people interested.

I think the feature pack has some good things, along with some questionable things, but i can see the value of “fixing” some stuff we all think should have been “fixed” at least a year ago. I think also that anet is taking some pretty big risks, stepping outside the standard expansion model and i think people are reacting to it accordingly. They make comparisons to other games (including gw1), but i think the jury is out. Unless they can deliver an “expansions worth of content” via living story in a fairly quick (few months time) then this system of releasing new stuff just doesn’t sit well with (at least some) of the community. Let’s all just hope the man behind the curtain has a back-up plan for the living world, that includes some major changes to WvW and PvE on top of game modes for sPvP. Else i fear vets lose the faith for the long term.

Tachenon.5270:

That was in May of 2013. Several websites reported an NCSoft person as saying an expansion was being ‘prepared’.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/13/4325904/guild-wars-2-expansion-pack-is-being-prepared-says-ncsoft

Shortly thereafter, it was ‘clarified’.

“In regards to your recent post on a Guild Wars 2 expansion, there is a slight misunderstanding when interpreting the answer from the NCsoft earnings call. We are considering an expansion, but we are taking a wait-and-see stance. We are evaluating the performance of the game and deciding on when would be the best time to launch an expansion. But right now, our living story approach is very successful in keeping players engaged with new and exciting content. Launching boxed expansions are a great way to package content, but if we can do this on a more regular basis, something we’ve been doing since launch, it provides players with new content to explore and experience every time they log into the game.”

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05/14/ncsoft-clarifies-stance-on-guild-wars-2-expansion

Right, thanks, it’s been awhile since i read that. Makes me wonder how long the wait and see is, now that over a year has passed and the living story is, well, hit-n-miss.

Vayne.8563:

munkiman.3068:

Corpus Christi.2057:

Prophet.6257:

So many people I talk to are convinced the 350+ people over at Anet are just screwing around and lazy. Others tell me it takes that many people to do the Living Story (which seems a unbelievable considering how little content is actually produced) However, I’ve only ever heard the idea that they are actually working on an expansion online. The arguments I’ve seen for it all sound too familiar and until Anet specifically says they are working on an expansion I will not believe it, give them hype, or get too passionate about this game.

It’s a good game. It is a solid B to C player in my “what to play” list but I only spend money on games I’m real passionate about. GW2 has just fallen out of that bracket for me.

If the world doesn’t grow neither does my passion for the game.

Exactly my hopes. I don’t see how all those 350 would be working through those 2 years and produce just what we got so far. That would be unthinkable, to say the least ( and stay polite ). Expansion is a must in the near future.

While they might not be able to give details or a timeline, you would think, after all this hubbabaloo and negative feedback, they’d simply come out and say, “don’t fret, we’ve been working on an expansion, more details in the near future”.

With people breaking out of the map, we do see that drytop is much larger than it is currently. I just wish it wasn’t released in small chunks every couple weeks, or in some cases, over a month.

I don’t think Anet gets to decide when to say that. The thing is, the timing if an expansion is actually, believe it or not, a business decision. The annoucement has to be timed right. I’m pretty sure NCsoft is calling those shots.

Didn’t NCsoft already mention an expansion in one of their quarterly earnings releases?

Corpus Christi.2057:

Prophet.6257:

So many people I talk to are convinced the 350+ people over at Anet are just screwing around and lazy. Others tell me it takes that many people to do the Living Story (which seems a unbelievable considering how little content is actually produced) However, I’ve only ever heard the idea that they are actually working on an expansion online. The arguments I’ve seen for it all sound too familiar and until Anet specifically says they are working on an expansion I will not believe it, give them hype, or get too passionate about this game.

It’s a good game. It is a solid B to C player in my “what to play” list but I only spend money on games I’m real passionate about. GW2 has just fallen out of that bracket for me.

If the world doesn’t grow neither does my passion for the game.

Exactly my hopes. I don’t see how all those 350 would be working through those 2 years and produce just what we got so far. That would be unthinkable, to say the least ( and stay polite ). Expansion is a must in the near future.

While they might not be able to give details or a timeline, you would think, after all this hubbabaloo and negative feedback, they’d simply come out and say, “don’t fret, we’ve been working on an expansion, more details in the near future”.

With people breaking out of the map, we do see that drytop is much larger than it is currently. I just wish it wasn’t released in small chunks every couple weeks, or in some cases, over a month.

Brother Grimm.5176:

ipan.4356:

You are assuming that everyone has only bought the box.

That is a mistake.

I think the mistake is assuming you spent gems on items, got the items and yet are owed something else….

I doubt anyone buys gemstore items in the hope the game doesn’t grow. You buy into an MMO for the long term, you spend money in the shop with that expectation not only to get the item, but to support the game. It be a bit different if the shop sold only items that you were required to purchase just to play the game. In this case, we buy the items to support the game and have the added benefit of the item. In many cases, some of us would certainly pay additionally for an expansion.

I know Chris is going to ultimately post an outline for the CDI in relation to Guilds, but after having a few pretty extensive discussions, i thought i post some things.

Community – First and foremost, we absolutely need a server community spot, a place that’s completely viable for guild building and advertising off the mega-server. I’d even go as far as having some sort of board for players to browse for guilds. If nothing else, I would nominate Claw Island as a server centralized meeting hub. With WvW being one of the popular game modes, it’s pretty vital to keep something in-line to support that.

Guild Halls/GvG – improving on the options for competitive play is a postive to the current stagnation of the competitive scene. Having leaderboards and structured tournaments with King of the hill/capture the Guild Lord/Point count for kills combination would be a mode set i’d suggest (multiple win states in other words), plus it gives anet a testing bed for anything outside the capture and hold PvP mode. I wouldn’t put too many convenience items in the halls themselves, since people would just hang out there for everything (no forge, no crafting, no standard merchants, etc).

Guild Vendors – These need to be more than just merchants, we need to build off the current guild rewards system, discounted traps and tricks, guild swag (not necessarily capes), but definitely more exclusive items for successful guilds. Success meaning PvP, GvG, WvW and the current mission structure. Each section earning “fame” or commendations that go toward various upgrades and rewards.

While i think missions could do with some new challenges as well, i really feel these 3 areas are pretty big ones that could be built upon and offer bigger goals for guilds.

Vayne.8563:

Spira.4578:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Spira.4578:

It’s same as in a revolution It needs to build up to a point for people to react.
And believe it or not, it IS building up.

A word of caution – revolutions are never something to take lightly. There is a great amount of mess involved, and rarely do they work out exactly as the revolutionaries intended.

Exactly. I just wanted to point out that people need to build up enough tension in order to react.

The “storm” now is considerably smaller than the storm over ascended items when that hit. That was a real storm. Not this storm in a teacup.

It often happens between patches, during long waits that people spend more time on the forums and get incited to become part of the mob. Not everyone who does actually believes everything they’re saying. This is human nature.

We’ve seen a very specific example of someone so worked up by other people’s complaints that he made a thread about it, only to remove his post after other people explained to him some facts about what he was saying. He took what other people were saying as true, because so many people said the same thing.

In the end he not only withdrew his post but changed his mind. He was pressured by the peer pressure of the forums (something you’ll notice I have no inclination to).

This isn’t gong to be a revolution. The patch will come out, people will start playing again, the WvW tournament will start, and this whole thing will blow over as if it never existed, as most of these do.

If you think I’m wrong, talk to me in a month.

Pretty certain the reason those were much larger “storms” was because there were a lot more players then we have now. When stuff like this blows over, it’s likely be due to people leaving or losing interest.

NewTrain.7549:

Honestly, people might care more about the story if it was any good. The writing is of the same quality as a Twilight novel and the characters are either completely forgettable or incredibly annoying.

I’d love for ANet to tell a good story, but in order to do that they have to seriously up their writing game.

I really don’t find the writing all that bad, i find the method of delivery makes it really tough for a player to get into it. I also think the fact that we have to wait 2 weeks or more to experience it, makes it extremely difficult to follow. Having to replay much of it for achievements, makes it lose it’s impact as well.

The cycle of releases also probably needs to stop, if they released it in bulk, i think more people would be able to see the story unfold and be more into it. Unfortunately, it’s not the “TV series” a lot of players are wanting to watch. I think given the constraints they have to work with (engine, development time, etc) i would make a far better “movie” than a TV series.

Note to self: don’t try to write posts on my phone…

Spira.4578:

Yepp, With daily runs I meant you only do it once since there’s a cap, but you don’t have to do all of that every day. You do what you like/need.

You might find lore related things boring, but that’s what some players to do actually have fun. If there would be new things ingame that would be perfect, since we could be doing that instead of creating “boring” things like that.

And about loving something and not getting bored.. this only works in theory.
For example, if you love pizza and keep eating it, eventually you’ll get sick of it and won’t want to eat it again (or at least for some time).

Sadly ( and not to me) anet is focused on story telling, which is fantastic, for me. But i have to say, back in LS1 the people i talked to (maybe a few hundred), said they did care.It’s sad for me, since i want anet to tell a good story, but i truly feel like the majority, really don’t care. While having a story behind actions is great for an mmo, telling a story, however is pretty lame. At least in many eyes I’ve talked to.

As a matter of fact, most people that played GW remember bits and pieces of the story, but ultimately could care less about it. Were missions a better way to tell the story? Meh. So far it seems to me, there a a pretty large base that really don’t give too much a dime about story, they simple what to move on to the next thing.
This is DRASTICALLY true for people that mostly WvW and PvP, they simply could care less about a story. “gimme something to hit”

Bottom line, i really cant find a whole lot of people taht give a crap about the story (sorry anet staff, whom which i care deeply about) but it is soo secondary to “what i can get” out of it, it makes it feel trivial.

i hope that will change, since i enjoy it, but it seems to me it’s so far out of peoples minds it’s like a bad fortune cookie…

First, there are far too many comparisons of apples and car batteries here. You cannot use retail business models in a clear way to prove a point about MMORPGs.

This game suffers from a few things, but leveling isn’t one of them. While the leveling experience can be tedious (especially with the implementation of the trait system), first time play-through and exploration are far more the focus. I also have an issue with these focus groups providing feedback about the leveling experience, since these focus groups are often oriented in whats wrong with the experience, not to mention how the groups were chosen.

If anything the game isn’t as high in retention rate for quite a few factors (not in any particular order):

• It’s built as a casual game, any hard-core concepts are minimal (sPVP, WvW not seeing much love doesn’t help matters, as those are often longer-term offerings for players)
• Extremely complex “dynamic” event system seems to cause rather slow development time, coupled with a rather large release in China. We just aren’t seeing enough to keep people interested.
• The social aspect from release has been drastically impacted with the intro of mega-servers, as has the play experience focused around large events, which are now constantly over-whelmed. While more population on a map is good, too much is bad, especially coupled with the next point.
• Engine optimization. This game is pretty inefficient when it comes to rendering massive battles, especially with it’s rather large particle effects. Mid-range machines have to be able to handle the majority of large battles. They don’t, which causes a good deal of frustration. This comes with the price of pretty graphics and higher poly-counts. While i think they’ve done well enough overall, it still needs some pretty large improvements.
• Too much “innovation”. Many players feel like test subjects when it comes to things like LS, events, down-state, down-scaling, combat, the weapon system, etc. While innovation is a good thing, too much can confuse and often frustrate players.

While true end-game content like raids and the gear-treadmill aren’t what people are clamoring for, just knowing something like FoW and UW are something down the road for them makes it seem more expansive, a goal to be tackled someday if they wish. Saying things like “the whole game is end-game” sounds great in theory, in practice, it falls short, at least as of right now.

I personally believe that ANet needs to get back to basics, unfortunately, i think it might be too late. They need to KISS (keep it simple stupid) and bring in things that have been proven to be stronger retention based objectives. They need to stop trying to “fix” LS since at this point, it’s been extremely difficult to tell a good story with the limits the game has and the time it takes to develop it. While i can’t honestly put out some grand scope of what they should or could be doing, it’s definitely not what they have been doing.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Thread explosion! Thanks for all the (rapid) responses. There seems to be a fairly consistent feeling that yes, these fights can be more engaging without becoming as difficult as the jungle wurm.

I like some of the ideas being presented, feel free to keep the discussion going. It’s also helpful to hear not only what’s working but why it’s working for you.

On the topic of using siege weapons as a role mechanic in these fights, is that something we want to see more of? I often worry that siege weapons can be just as boring as standing in the safe corner pressing the same attack. Do you feel that they can also cause some contention between players?

Make them tougher! But, now you have to fit it in the lore. Why are these guys so much harder now?

I think mobile siege would be pretty awesome. Have Shatterer start running around the map at %50 health and we all chase him down with those pact tanks.

Seriously though, i think siege is fine for these bosses as long as they aren’t totally pass/fail type things or alternatively, trivialize the fight when used.

Something to ponder regarding all this. “pre-cursor crafting” or “an expansions worth of content”. These 2 statements alone have been thrown back at them probably 100’s if not 1000’s of times. I’d be really leery to talk about what’s in development too.

I’d really like to be hyped again, but i can definitely see why things have pretty much been hush-hush.

LostBalloon.6423:

misterman.1530:

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

DiogoSilva.7089:

All those changes are important because they fix the several flaws that GW2 has early game: the lack of a sense of progression, poor tutorials, directionless, forgottable rewards and jumpy story instances that forced you to level up midway, interrupting the flow of the story.

So far, this feature patch is great for new players, but, what about the veteran players? It doesn’t seems to offer much to make us stick to the game.

More information will be released next week about features that are more suited to veteran players.

Wait. One person thinks the feature pack was/is a good idea, out of this whole chain, and THAT is the one you respond to? Really?

This snippet comes into a thread, ignores every legitimate complaint/worries, and answers the most pointless of questions in the actual thread (and that is off topic)

This is even worse than not having any red in the thread. It’s horrible and gives people the impression they are being totally ignored, which is what that ANET employee, Regina Buenaobra, did. And I’m not trying to single her out, she’s an example, she’s far from being the only one that does that.

Edit: snippet from https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Completely-Pointless-Revamps/page/2 …. 2/3 into the page approx.

My take at this point is they are actually taking the time to respond. I know in my job (we use a similar way to communicate), I often just don’t have the time to read most of the posts, let alone respond to them. This is definitely a case to cut them some slack.

There is also some more hostile posts, many of which have no basis in fact, that simply shouldn’t be addressed. We are all human, responding negatively while we are riled up doesn’t help anyone. I personally gloss over the vitriol stuff, i think most people would too.

I do think a rather large chunk of staff read the forums, at least from time to time. But given the way players address the staff in many cases, it’s unlikely that they would want to put the time and effort into posting responses, especially if it isn’t required of them to do so.

I’m sure there is also descent among the team as to what they should and shouldn’t do on the forums, which is most likely a contributing factor in peoples participation here.

TehPwnerer.7215:

Liewec.2896:

what i really don’t want them to do is simply re-run the first year!
it would be a little bit nasty after many of us have spent our entire gold supply and thousand of hours farming to save up for Greatsaw,
adding it back would be a kick in the teeth for our dedication.

currently it is valued at a similar price to legendary weapons,
and in my mind, that is where it belongs!

I couldn’t disagree with this more. The weapon skin system was so flawed at that stage of the game it’s not even funny. I fully welcome the return of anything from previous years that was impossible for a majority of the playerbase to get.

Farming tons of gold isn’t dedication, it’s boring. You chose to do that. Many people paid upwards of $200 or more to get a skin the first time around and got nothing. Clearly they were less dedicated.

Yeah that was a fiasco… Hopefully they won’t be locked behind BL claim tickets either.

Re: the downed state change. We really should have been tossed into our personal instance and gone through some of these things in a casual way. I just don’t see how moving it out in levels helps. Maybe there is more to it than that?

While i think everyone one here participating is great, if we could branch out, and grab some people that are outside of the circle of forum goers (and there are probably a lot) we could impact the outcome significantly. Grab your guilds, your servers and document your overall feedback. It’ll be a lot of work, but you have to know Chris has to use some of his free-time to do these. Let’s make this something worthy of community outreach! get your server/your guild leaders involved in contributing and post em, if you got em That’s my 2 cents.

Dirame.8521:

munkiman.3068:

Dirame.8521:

timmyf.1490:

Could this be simpler? Remember when Southsun had those Magic Find buffs? What if there was just an NPC – Nicholas-style – who moved between zones every day. He gives you a buff with +MF EXP Karma Coin only within the zone.

This would mean lots of people in the open world, though just within the zone of the day. Still, it’d mean you can do some open world content with better rewards.

Petunias the Sylvari Traveler could also give you recipes for crafting precursors! You just have to complete an absurd of collection first though.

I think i just miss Yakkington and opening the gifts

Don’t worry, you get Groot the Oakheart instead!

Ha, maybe we can go a little Nornish and do that instead. Kinda tired of Sylvari being center stage lately.

I actually agree somewhat. Although i have about 25 stacks of silk now anyway (and prolly just as much mithril). I don’t think this is going to impact the economy, but i do worry that level 80’s will be “stuck” with a plethera of profession specific drops, which could be pretty troublesome for most people (read Engi with limiting 80’s to 3 weapon drops). Right now i have TONS of leather too, and i have nary a medium armor class i play often. I think i’m in the same boat as a few… is this just for up to level 80 or is this across every level? If it’s across the game, I’m going to be pooping mithril and silk, since all i play are heavy and light classes and barely any leather…

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Anthony, can you tell me why karma seems much less important now that it has been at release?

We have added a few karma sinks along the way but typically new content comes with a new currency, eg. candy corn or geodes. I haven’t personally implemented all of this content or currency but if I had to guess I would say that this pattern exists because we actually want to give you specific rewards for specific content.

I posted that idea awhile ago (having area items that are trade able for area based stuff) but i also thought of the caveat, Those merchants should also be able to flush the overages. Either trade for karma (or copper) to give them more utility. I may have 500 geodes and bought everything i want for them (say 6 months later), but now i’m stuck with them, type thing. I know there is issue with balancing the economy, but i do think players still need more gold/karma earning potential (unlike the massive amount of jugs we once had). Just a thought. Gold talks?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Rethinking Nicolas the Traveller idea:

What if Nicolas successor doesn’t simply collect stuff from a map, but from certain locations in the whole game? Week 1 would be rare spawns in ruins in any zone, Week 2 would be rare spawns in caves/mines, week 3 in Ogre territory, etc. An additional dropchance from events in those locations.

People would finally feel rewarded to explore hidden mines, corners of Tyria… you can’t drop mystic coins in all of the maps

I’d be up for that, although i think he should move and with an objective to moving. Like “resupply the pact” or something like that. That could be pretty cool.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

We will starting a CDI soon on…….Guilds.

It will be broken down into time boxed discussion sections such as Guild vs. Guild, Guild Activities, Managing Guilds, Guild Content etc.

I will update when I have more details on when we start. I am very much looking forward to it.

Chris

Thanks Chris, i’ll see what i can do to get an organized discussion going on NSP, most likely using TS. I know there will be some clamoring for GvG (ala GW style via Guild Halls). If you could go into a small bit of detail on what’s not even remotely feasible, that might help too. When i come back, after you make the CDI post, i may have more in-depth questions. I just don’t want to waste peoples time/energy discussing things that are too far out in the future (i.e. take far too much time to develop, over a year maybe?). Either way, i think this is a good hot-button topic.

Branden Gee.2150:

Alright just trying to get all of these thoughts into a single concise list. (Please note this does not mean that any of these things will happen)

• First person camera
• Increase max dolly (camera distance) distance
• Decrease min dolly distance
• More finite dolly control
• Automatic camera height adjustment on /sleep emote
• Manual camera height adjustment
• Stop ‘random snapping’ from happening
• Look at camera
• Free orientation movement
• Fix automatic camera height so that the over the shoulder camera works as it would be expected to work
• Manual FoV adjustment

Please let me know if there is anything else I’m missing.

Minus maybe 1 or 2 things (FoV slider for example), i literally think if you took GW’s camera and put it into GW2 (i know it’s not easy like that), it would solve most everything. Too bad it’s not as simple as C&P… If you sit and play GW and envision the camera passing through objects (making them transparent in many cases) i think that would be an ideal camera.

I know one of the big things is not being able to see behind WvW walls, but there would have to be some collision mechanism to prevent that. I can picture building an object and having a flag on whether it collides with the camera or not.

Dirame.8521:

timmyf.1490:

Could this be simpler? Remember when Southsun had those Magic Find buffs? What if there was just an NPC – Nicholas-style – who moved between zones every day. He gives you a buff with +MF EXP Karma Coin only within the zone.

This would mean lots of people in the open world, though just within the zone of the day. Still, it’d mean you can do some open world content with better rewards.

Petunias the Sylvari Traveler could also give you recipes for crafting precursors! You just have to complete an absurd of collection first though.

I think i just miss Yakkington and opening the gifts

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’d have to agree. I believe a far better method would be something like Dry Top, or (as I believe someone above suggested), something like Nicholas the Traveler from GW — the point being to have something he wants that drops from mobs in various locations.

So much this! Please! I know we have geode traders in dry-top, but i loved trading with Nicholas each week. Maybe his great-grandson?

All i have to say is, poor engineers when it comes to weapon drops. Yikes!

I can work IRL for an hour and make 300++ gold. Since i have to work anyway, i’d rather not farm for it. Gem exchange is crazy high now adn will probably soar by the end of the weekend.

It’d be really nice if the camera worked like it does in GW. That would solve a lot of issues with the camera.

You can’t play with them since they are on EU servers. If they were on an NA server, you could play with them anytime (accept WvW). Any reason you picked a NA server if your friends are on EU?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

It would be better to open a new thread, or post in a thread dealing with that topic, than derailing the topic of this thread.

Else, you may receive responses such as: “I can’t address that here”, “I will try to speak to those versed in that topic, and get back to you” (which might be unintentionally forgotten), or even moderation.

If such things happen, it could be seen as non-communicative, and add tinder to the already blazing fire. Let’s try to avoid sabotaging the process as much as possible on both sides. =)

Understood, it still feels like on open dialog on communication. But thanks for the feedback. I really don’t want to open a thread, nor am i worried about an answer or lack of, i was just going off the responses Chris left in what i felt were off-topic discussion and the attempt at open communication about the various things, slapping down rumors and the like. I probably misinterpreted the intent.

I’m no stranger to these things, i do a lot of complex scripting and the like for my job, so i guess my thought process is a slightly off-kilter deal. I apologize.

Behellagh.1468:

The topic is shifting from establishing a communication process and is starting to ask about very specific things to be looked at. All we are doing here is giving him enough rope to allow his masters to shut him down by asking him to discuss specific scenarios. Or he’s going to have to include “This is my opinion” on all his posts so it won’t be used as an ANet “promise”.

Hmmm, i’ll have to give this some thought. But, in the spirit of some communication (which they’ve now proven to some extent is OK). I wouldn’t mind seeing some (I’m a fanboi) transparency into the thought process behind some of these changes/improvements that have already been released as “features”. I guess i thought that would be a good stepping off point. However, calling it a feature is something i’m interested in knowing about the idea behind that as well.

Duke Nukem.6783:

VOLTCIEAGE.3029:

no opener system is good we need new kicking/party owner system

if i start the party then it should be up to me who stays and who goes, il admit if i want to LEAVE the party then they should get their own instance but if i get kicked then yes the dungeon should close.

There is a very small importance on being able to kick an entire part from the dungeon. As a matter of fact, the bigger problem was with owners getting D/C’d than the issue you’re referring to. Also, i’m hoping this eliminates (or drastically reduces) dungeon runners that exploit, as they can now be kicked out without people losing progress.

For the most part (besides not being a majority vote), it’s win-win.

Behellagh.1468:

We are derailing here.

Me? Just curious. As i was trying to keep in theme of Communicating with you. Maybe i’m out of line?

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

IvanTheGrey.2941:

Mr. Whiteside, sorry to bring it up again, but can you clarify the changes in instance ownership? I believe that there’s a genuine concern for griefing, and I was hoping that you could put our legitimate worries at ease.

Thanks again for replying!

We have been discussing this for a very long time. Can you PM me so i remember to get back to this point when it is appropriate to do so please?

Chris

I could answer this! It is true two people could be invited and then boot out everyone else to “take over” the instance where as before two people could only kick the instance owner out closing the instance destroying it for everyone. While this isn’t ideal and something we need to look more into, the goal of this change was to reduce the more common case of the instance owner leaving. For now Ryan is looking into adding some logging (see post here) so people can report people abusing this.

Not trying to be rude. But, could you please explain why this has been such a long lingering issue? Is it just that there weren’t enough feedback posts about it? So it got shelved?

Maybe go into a bit about the whys for this decision to include it in the game to being with? (i.e. too difficult to change prior to release, or not seen as a major issue)

I also wonder, does QA deal with D/C issues, meaning is that part of your testing structure? Do you D/C the machine intentionally to see what sort of problems are introduced? I ask this since it’s kind of a thorn for the megaserver at the moment (getting D/C’d at Teq or wurm or world events and not getting the reward, type of thing).

I guess i might be asking too much about the inside stuff, but i think it would at least help us understand some of the layers, and some of the issues you all face, beyond the corporate hierarchy.

Vayne.8563:

Well someone I’m sure will find and post the Lotro dev interview about why they don’t do raids anymore. He was very clear about 2% of the gaming population raiding, compared to the number of people on the forums who talked about raiding. It’s the very thing we’re talking about here.

The forums don’t represent the majority of the playerbase at least at Lotro…which isn’t available on console. But it’s been like that in almost every game I’ve seen.

Ghostgrawler talked years about about how few people actually raided in WoW, but to read the forums you’d think everyone did.

Over the years many devs have made similar observations. Could I find any of those quotes now? No.

But yeah the 15% number was just a throwaway number. It wasn’t meant to be accurate. It was meant to say that gaming communities are seldom represented by forum posters in any way that is meaningful. This I truly believe and I truly believe most devs would probably agree.

Completely agree on all the things about the minority. I’ve been running/hosting and moderating game based forums for over 15 years. While the numbers may vary slightly and change with time or genre, it’s ALWAYS been the minority of players that actually use forums for any kind of communication or information. You really have to try hard to get the numbers higher than 10% in most cases. I’ve even run forums about forums and even then only 25% of the people that were invited to participate even bothered and these were all people moderating/administering forums!

One of the most powerful tools we could use as individual communities is our own discussions. We could easily document individual group discussions and bring them back here. I’m going to try and organize a discussion group on our server once this CDI kicks off, gather the feedback and present it to the thread. Not sure how successful that will be, but it’s worth a shot.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

tanf.8917:

Ok, lets take something that actually exist, for example, SAB. How many topics there is about SAB? a lot. Players tried to communicate with you, asking SAB to be back, over & over & over again, and what do we get in return? “SAB will not be returning for awhile”.

That’s not how communication works. So i’m gonna pass.

Some people might not realise the limited ressources Anet has. SAB was a project of a developer who creates new maps (if I remember correctly), currently we venture into new territory and got a new map (DryTop) in the first episodes. It would be really surprising if we stop now in progressing westwards, so I’d assume we get more map(s) soon.

People wanted new maps, everyone wants new maps.

Why would Anet priorize SAB over new maps? Even if SAB fans really want it, it would hurt the core game.

If you ask 10 people what they want you’ll get 20 different answers. You can’t expect Anet to give a answer to everyones questions when they try to keep the new maps a secret. And why are they keeping new maps a secret? I guess it’s to keep expectations on a realistic level.

I think it’s fairly realistic to want ANet to “turn SAB back on”. It’s already built and i’m sure many people haven’t had the chance to experience it. Even if they only run it every couple weeks or so, i’m sure people would be happier about it, even if it’s not actively being worked on. I know they probably don’t want to take away from the living story, however that’s almost like saying they are going to turn off keg brawl (or any other side activity) since it either doesn’t fit the lore or takes away from living world.

Kestrelle.8165:

Thought I’d try to summarise the pros and cons of the Megaserver from this thread.
I’ve probably left some points out but I tried to skim through every page

Pros:
More people on maps
Cheaper (less servers required)
No “home” server vs overflow issues
Increase in new player retention
Unpopular events can now be completed
No need for server merges

Cons:
More people on maps
Effect on RP
Every map is overflow
Language on EU
Loss of server community/pride
Lack of choice for players who prefer low pop
Increased loading times
Loss of server events eg Temple runs/mining runs/world boss tours
More gold sellers
Guesting can result in player being put back in same map
Guild & WvW recruiting
Guild missions/puzzles etc can be confusing with players spread across maps, different guilds queueing for same event etc
World bosses on strict timetable
Too many players and spell effects at world bosses causing lag/low fps/dc
Difficulty in getting credit at some overcrowded events (particularly for lower level players)
Players beginning to avoid /map and /say.
Lack of proper scaling for events
No option to queue for different megaserver or /join if not in party

Pretty much this ^^

ColinJohanson.2394:

fadeaway.2807:

Too many times have these ‘CDIs’ or developer discussion threads turned into us talking to a brick wall. In fact, the majority of the people who would probably have incredible input to give you have either been banned from the forums or simply don’t bother anymore. If you want us to put the effort in and engage in the sorts of discussions you’re proposing, you need to show us you can acknowledge public sentiment and comment on it, even if you don’t bend to it.

Thanks fadeaway, I want to be clear this isn’t a discussion initiative. As stated back in my first post, the concept here is to simply provide more visibility by providing a list of top tier game areas we’re aware of or concerned about so it’s visible to players.

CDI is intended to be a discussion initiative, if you have feedback on that or how it (or other discussion initiatives) work please make sure to put those in the CDI thread. If your feedback is something like what I’ve proposed isn’t useful and you’d prefer more discussion initiatives, that’d be totally valid in this thread as well.

In order for those things to become a reality, you will need to provide the tools in which to do this. First and foremost, doing stickies, how many are we talking about here? You could easily fill a page worth of stickies of things you are aware of and working on. Even just limiting your selves to “big” hot-button topics.

May i suggest a blog post? simple stating these things? I really don’t think you guys need to swing 180 and turn the forums into red-posts.

You’re a gamer, and so is Chris (from what i’ve read anyway). When you play any other game in recent years, you can see players get SotG posts that map this out, get creative with it and give out the information in a way that’s not side-stepping and PR speak.

One thing that bugs me and has actually bitten you, personally in the past (i think) is the example “an expansions worth of content” (in talking about living world). While it doesn’t say anything about what you put into the game, it does say something about what players can expect with these releases and that bit me personally, pretty hard, now that we are half (or even a 1/4 way through season 2). Gotta remember what you released in GW, this isn’t even close, from my PoV. This is a good example of a broad stroke, one that fits policy, but is so generalized and so subjective that players could easily take away some crazy ideas of what that really means.

Without going into “the company policy sux”, i REALLY want you to take even an hour and look at some of the games (recent) that have focused on communication as a method to not only promote the game, but give players a feel for it’s future and the tools in which get’s them to their goal. It’s really vital to long-term retention and satisfaction on a player level, especially in this genre.

Also, you really need a Gaile to handle, at least the US crowd. While GW wasn’t as big of a game, she did an amazing job at communicating with players, on an external website, in the midst of controversy and i’m sure under pressure.

As i mentioned in one of the other threads, I would be happy to (and i think other community leaders/organizers) extoll the importance of the CDI’s and feedback threads. This means taking a good deal of time to at least try and organize our specific server communities to formulate opinions based on your direction. Unlike these forums, and the game itself, we actually have the tools, in as much as we can try to get people to participate in using them. Right now, at least on NSP, the mega-server wiped out a lot of our efforts, even though some of use have over 1000 members. I know a few of ue have invested heavily in this game and would rather not see our efforts and time go entirely to waste.