Curse

Arkantos · Jul 23, 2009, 09:44 AM // 09:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zinger314

I'm really surprised at GWGuru.

I thought they learned not to trust anything ArenaNet says at face-value years ago.

Well, GW2 beta was a huge thing to get people hyped about, so the community assumed that ANet wouldn't fail to deliver. But, for whatever reason, they did.

Lonesamurai · Jul 23, 2009, 09:57 AM // 09:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enon

If they'd launch the game looking like this GW would've died many years ago.

sorry, World of Warcraft released looking very much like this and look how well that went

Enon · Jul 23, 2009, 10:10 AM // 10:10

WoW is suppose to look a bit cartoonish. GW, based on the early screenshots, isn't, which you can clearly see when looking at the armors and houses. WoW's graphics therefor fit the scenery while GW's just look horrible.

And honestly, WoW looks way better compared to those early GW screenshots. (Never thought I would say that...)

Lonesamurai · Jul 23, 2009, 10:24 AM // 10:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enon

WoW is suppose to look a bit cartoonish. GW, based on the early screenshots, isn't, which you can clearly see when looking at the armors and houses. WoW's graphics therefor fit the scenery while GW's just look horrible.

And honestly, WoW looks way better compared to those early GW screenshots. (Never thought I would say that...)

so not only are you comparing GWas its is now to its own early screenies, but your also comparing WoW as it currently is to GW's early screenies?

both GW and WoW, which are both 4 years old now, have BOTH had at least 3 major graphics overhauls since release, either model/texture overhauls or graphic engine overhauls

congrats

Test Me · Jul 23, 2009, 10:43 AM // 10:43

I see a lot of people concerned about GW community and its feelings. But ther is no *GW community*. There is a Guru community and there is some other unofficial sites that formed a GW themed community, but this segregation and those unofficial sites will never form, or be a real gw community.

For a GW community to exist, ANet must provide support for it. So whenever people try to make a judgment over how good or bad "CM"s do their job they should remember ANet is not even interested in setting up an official forum on their website after more 4 years of GW.

That is how far their denial of the GW community existence goes.

* So why do you expect the community's voice to be heard when they don't even offer an official channel for the community to express itself?

* How much more clear could a company be in stating they don't care about any community they might have created around its game?

* And derived from the above, what more do they need to do to make it clear our opinion here on guru or other unofficial sites is worth close to nothing to them?

* How hard would it be and why don't the current CMs push for the creation of an official forum? Shouldn't that be the *first* thing on their agenda as they take a CM job with any company?

* All other MMOs I know offer an official forum. Even other NCSoft titles like Lineage2, or even Aion(?). With GW is just whatever unofficial site you land on after a google search or so.

So it should be pretty obvious to anyone they either have no clue they have a community around (not likely) or they don't really care, even after 4+ years.

Enon · Jul 23, 2009, 10:50 AM // 10:50

FYI, I was comparing early and beta screenshots with your early GW screenshots.

Lonesamurai · Jul 23, 2009, 11:02 AM // 11:02

Sorry Test Me, but no, your very wrong on all your points and I know Martin and Regina are highly active in the community and on all the sites that are listed in the Community pages of the GW website

Enon · Jul 23, 2009, 11:08 AM // 11:08

For the love of God, can you suck up more?

Lonesamurai · Jul 23, 2009, 11:16 AM // 11:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enon

For the love of God, can you suck up more?

suck up? you what?

Test Me · Jul 23, 2009, 11:18 AM // 11:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lonesamurai

Sorry Test Me, but no, your very wrong on all your points and I know Martin and Regina are highly active in the community and on all the sites that are listed in the Community pages of the GW website

That wasn't my point.

Yes Regina and Martin in particular, they follow all those sites. Which *in fact* makes their job much harder. I am not judging their performance in any way. But they should be the first of people to push for an official forum/community support so that they *don't* have to read tens of sites for feedback. Of course they will still have to keep an eye on other sites even if an official forum existed, but not to the extend they do now as they could focus their attention to the main forum.

And in the end how come Aion (not even released yet) has an official forum while ANet wasn't able to offer this in 4+ years? How come Lineage2 has one, and so on and on. To me this is a clear statement coming from ANet, not even NCSoft (since other NCSoft titles prove they pay attention to community). They don't want it, so they don't do it.

Question is: why?

I'll leave you to answer it, if you don't like my interpretation.

Lonesamurai · Jul 23, 2009, 11:25 AM // 11:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Test Me

That wasn't my point.

Yes Regina and Martin in particular, they follow all those sites. Which *in fact* makes their job much harder. I am not judging their performance in any way. But they should be the first of people to push for an official forum/community support so that they *don't* have to read tens of sites for feedback. Of course they will still have to keep an eye on other sites even if an official forum existed, but not to the extend they do now as they could focus their attention to the main forum.

And in the end how come Aion (not even released yet) has an official forum while ANet wasn't able to offer this in 4+ years? How come Lineage2 has one, and so on and on. To me this is a clear statement coming from ANet, not even NCSoft (since other NCSoft titles prove they pay attention to community). They don't want it, so they don't do it.

Question is: why?

I'll leave you to answer it, if you don't like my interpretation.

Actually thats not entirely correct

there is one main reason they have not put an official forum up and trolling through WoW's forum is a good case in point... POWER

here on guru, on TGH, on GWO, on my forums and others, Martin and Regina have NO POWER at all and as shown on WoW's board and on others through the lifespan of the MMO genre, once that power is given to CM's, it can goto their heads and things go missing, get deleted, etc when they are not wanted to be mentioned in the light of day

This gives Martin and Regina a sense of credibility and also more opportunity to screw up and keeps them (to a point) honest, as they HAVE to be careful what is said as they can't delete threads that undermine them as HAS happened on official forums for other games

another good point being that it also brings many different ranges of ideas, emotions, etc to the table as certain forums have gained certain personalities through the people posting on them and this can be seen by polls put up by the CM's in the past on all the big Elite Fan Forums and all the poll's coming back with differing ranges of answers and then they can collate the answers themselves to get a better idea of feedback

Enon · Jul 23, 2009, 11:33 AM // 11:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lonesamurai

once that power is given to CM's, it can goto their heads and things go missing, get deleted, etc when they are not wanted to be mentioned in the light of day

Definitely true (good old MxO days). However, since they're not able to delete threads at GWG, they end up ignoring them. Not much of a difference really.

Ravious · Jul 23, 2009, 11:39 AM // 11:39

To say that there is no Guild Wars community is silly. There is no official Guild Wars community, sure, but I personally like being able to choose which communities to belong to rather being forced in to an official community dictated by company rules.

Test Me · Jul 23, 2009, 11:39 AM // 11:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lonesamurai

This gives Martin and Regina a sense of credibility and also more opportunity to screw up and keeps them (to a point) honest, as they HAVE to be careful what is said as they can't delete threads that undermine them as HAS happened on official forums for other games

The fact that there is a chance you would get robbed while walking the streets of any town does not mean you should stay locked inside your house.

There are plenty of things that can go wrong, I fear any person deciding to embrace "doing nothing" just because of fear of failure for one reason or another. Where would we be as humans if fear of failure was the driving emotion?

So no. I don't buy your argumentation. That is, in no way, a reason or good justification for why there is no official forum. You're trying to come up with excuses form their attitude, which strengthens the argument that they got it wrong. But it is not your mistake, therefore not your excuse to make.

It's been 4+ years of a game that build heavily on community activity (from teaming in game to coming up with builds and discussing strategies) that offers no official support for its community.

That is a pretty clear attitude, speaks itself if you'd like. I like GW too, but that doesn't mean I need to get delusionally in love with their team and all they do.

And I hope they take this as constructive criticism and I really hope Regina and Martin will hear this point and finally push for an official forum. It might be 5 years too late, but better late than never... and better early for GW2 than... never.

JR · Jul 23, 2009, 11:42 AM // 11:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Test Me

And in the end how come Aion (not even released yet) has an official forum while ANet wasn't able to offer this in 4+ years? How come Lineage2 has one, and so on and on. To me this is a clear statement coming from ANet, not even NCSoft (since other NCSoft titles prove they pay attention to community). They don't want it, so they don't do it.

Aion only has beta forums right now, to the best of my knowledge they have not yet stated whether or not they will have official forums post-release. That said, I'd be surprised if they didn't, considering two of their CMs were fansite leaders.

As for why ArenaNet chose not to have them for Guild Wars: Official forums are only worth having if you are going to run them properly. Controlling the signal/noise ratio on an official forum is ten times worse than on a fansite forum, because it's everyones first stop. It's also a reflection of your community, so you need to dedicate the resources to maintain it. You can't really rely on volounteer mods, and paying for mods is obviously just another expense. If you can afford to outsource a forum admin and a team of level-headed moderators I think official forums can be the way to go. If you aren't willing to make that commitment they can be a curse.

Then there is the benefit of having a community split between fansites. Each fansite will develop a community with a particular direction and attitude, which can help prevent fiction between different factions of the playerbase. For example, imagine if GWO and TeamQQ were mixed together on one forum. I think you can imagine the chaos that would ensue. Having official forums naturally discourages fansite development, because you are always going to get the majority of people signing up.

Also as LoneSamurai said, it gives us the impression that ArenaNet is on our turf. If a thread goes missing here, or a rant against Anet gets locked, we aren't going to launch into some conspiracy about how they are the man holding us down.

There are lots of benefits either way. It really depends on how much of a commitment the company is willing to make. There have been many who tried to launch official forums have failed in the past, underestimating just how much time and effort is required. Guild Wars is proof that you can develop a very healthy fansite community. It's even proof that it can be strong enough to last through years of neglect, it just may not be very healthy on the other side.

Test Me · Jul 23, 2009, 11:45 AM // 11:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ravious

To say that there is no Guild Wars community is silly. There is no official Guild Wars community, sure, but I personally like being able to choose which communities to belong to rather being forced in to an official community dictated by company rules.

I believe, that is because you are more or less tech-savvy then others. You don't represent the majority of people that would probably be please to know there is an official forum out there they can go to.

On the other hand the existence of an official channel is not exclusive with the existence of unofficial fan sites. Your choices are not less if an official community site existed as you make it sound ("forced in an official community"), but rather they are extended: you can choose to check the official community and any other unofficial site you like *at the same time*.

The first option is not possible currently so it is today that you have less choices and are "forced" to pick a random unofficial site to scrap for any pieces and bits of "official" information you might like to hear or talk about. Of course not really knowing which site is more relevant than the other, besides the position they show in a web search engine.

Kattar · Jul 23, 2009, 11:46 AM // 11:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

If a thread goes missing here, or a rant against Anet gets locked, we aren't going to launch into some conspiracy about how they are the man holding us down.

Who said we don't?

Technically I should say "we" since I'm part of the axis of evil that is Guru, but whatever.

Lonesamurai · Jul 23, 2009, 11:47 AM // 11:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

Also as LoneSamurai said, it gives us the impression that ArenaNet is on our turf. If a thread goes missing here, or a rant against Anet gets locked, we aren't going to launch into some conspiracy about how they are the man holding us down.

no, that would be Inde holding us down, which some would say may be quite nice

Test Me · Jul 23, 2009, 11:55 AM // 11:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

There are lots of benefits either way. It really depends on how much of a commitment the company is willing to make. There have been many who tried to launch official forums have failed in the past, underestimating just how much time and effort is required. Guild Wars is proof that you can develop a very healthy fansite community. It's even proof that it can be strong enough to last through years of neglect, it just may not be very healthy on the other side.

Precisely my point.

It's pretty obvious ANet is not wiling to make any commitment to its community, though the game by design (the simple existence of the skill and equipment build game mechanics) it is a community oriented game. Players that never reach the wiki, pvx and forums like guru are totally lost ingame, if they don't quit early because they don't get what the hell is going on.

About GW as an example of a healthy community split across different fansites... I don't really see where the "healthy" part comes from. Have you seen the last year posts on these communities?

PS: Please stop finding them excuses. Even if you identify with ANet because you like GW so much, it does not mean it's your personal failure if ANet did something bad and you need to defend them. Unless you believe ANet is perfect... and then the issue is somewhere else.

Lonesamurai · Jul 23, 2009, 12:02 PM // 12:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Test Me

PS: Please stop finding them excuses. Even if you identify with ANet because you like GW so much, it does not mean it's your personal failure if ANet did something bad and you need to defend them. Unless you believe ANet is perfect... and then the issue is somewhere else.

Test, we're not "finding them excuses", JR and I regularly chat to Martin and Regina about game and normal life things (hell, I ask them for input into my shows for god sake, thats part of their job)

the point JR is making is commitment through monetary means, and ANet would rather not spread the cash thinner than it already is by running official forums and paying the dedicated people needed to mod them, update them, service them, etc

WoW for instance has a dedicated team doing that, however Blizzard has in the range of 15billion dollars a month (not sure what the break down is sorry) compared to ANets minuscule by comparison amount coming in...

the point is also that this IS NOT an MMO in the traditional sense and comparing the business model and how they run the communities between GW and mainstream styled MMO's is like comparing the games themselves and you know aswell as we do that you just can't do that