Shall Anet open GW2 to the community via democratisation?

[Deleet]

Originally Posted by Malice Black

A game ruled by people who dwell in a basement. No thanks.

It's only you that live in a basement...


I'm going to have to side with the other technocrats here. While player input is good, it's better to have professionals have the final word. Democracy is slow, and ad populum is a fallacy.

[Ctb]

Hellgate London has also implemented a community driven feedback scheme.

Off the topic... but if HG:L hasn't improved by magnitudes of at least 10 since the end of beta, the only thing that's ever going to fix that game is the Delete key and a complete rewrite :\

Tyrany with the iron fist and the heart of gold is the way to go!

You jest, but "benevolent" tyranny IS the way to go for something like a video game.

The theory behind a political democracy is that people are motivated by self-interest to educate themselves on important matters affecting them, and those people will then educate themselves on political candidates and choose the ones that best fit their ideals (we could argue whether or not that actually happens most of the time, but that's, loosely, the theory behind it).

That doesn't work so well in a commercial product though. We can make all the suggestions we want, but we have no reasonable way of becoming informed about things like the design of the game's physics engine, or the database and network structures, or the capabilities of the art team. As such, you can have people vote, but they're not going to be voting for anything based on anything but emotion because they won't have any ability to form a valid rationale for their opinions.

Beside all that, we already have a way of voting: money. If I don't like a video game, I'm not going to spend any of my time explaining why to the company, I'm just not going to buy it and I might say negative things about it if people ask. I just don't care enough about video games to worry about, and most other people are the same way.

. A discussion will never be fruitful with one-liners.

Just put him on your ignore list and quit arguing with him. He stopped posting useful things long ago so you're not going to miss out on anything.

The problem is, as has been mentioned, the signal to noise ratio. How can we gather and forward the good (both positive and negative) feedback (the signal) and put a damper on the uninformed, shortsighted or plain old malicious feedback (the noise)?

But that's more or less the heart of the problem. I see a lot of popular ideas floated here that are just plain BAD. The reason they're popular here is because the forum generally attracts primarily hardcore players who spend way too much time in front of the computer. The people who play in more reasonable blocks don't speak up because, simply put, they don't care. They're not going to complain about things even if you change the venue for doing so, they're just going to stop playing quietly if they're annoyed enough at something they perceive to be wrong.

I don't think you're ever going to get those people involved because they just don't take video games that seriously.

Look at an issue like loot scaling. It's very unpopular here, but I'd wager most of the game's players have never even heard of it. They probably never saw the anti-farm code notice prior to the LS update. If I had to bet, I'd place money that a good 80% or more of the active playerbase of the last two years either doesn't know what it is, doesn't care, or likes the change. Yet, to see this group talk about it, you'd think the very end of the world was upon us.

You're just never going to get a good mix of valid opinions in a video game. Most people, frankly, just don't care enough about them to spend their time complaining or trying to brainstorm new ideas for them.

[Fril Estelin]

I should have never mentioned the word "democracy" in the title of this thread. Now all people see is this concept and imagine a GW game directed by players. Never. Going. To. Happen.

I'll say it again, patiently: this is about representativity and the relationship between GW players and Anet. End of story, no "stupid playerbase making stupid decisions for Anet" or people getting cookies in basements.

A different picture on this topic:
- imagine a huge tree with at the bottom (ROOT) Anet and at the top (LEAVES) all GW players;
- current situation: our tree of relationship has hundreds of branches, crossing in all directions and with two HUGE nodes just above the Anet root (Gaile and Andrew), and around 10 BIG nodes in the middle (the 9 elite fanforums and GWiki); call it cacophony or organised chaos;
- proposed improvement: add a 3rd HUGE nodes next to the CRs which are connected to the various significant other nodes in the tree (and ultimately to leaves, i.e. players).

P.S.: I still have to reply to may posts, and it'll take me some time to do so.

[zwei2stein]

Biggest thing you have to deal with is also bad player choice of their own representatives, they can make many mistakes.

For example, how do communities choose their representatives?

* Populism - whoever gets voted will get voted because of his populist view, which turn to be bad representative for anyone since it will produce lowest common denominator person which does not put forward any meaningful feedback as it would usually mean that he would have to take sides.

Example: When "ursan" (oh noes, again) comes to discussion, all this person would say "yeah, it exists" as pretty much anything else would mean he has to take sides (and choose views to support) and loose votes with opposition.

Theese can happen with direct vote, and will beat anyone who actually has opinions as those took part in debate and pissed off people.

* "Earner" - long time member of community who has no qualities making him viable representative of comunity but who simply stayed long enough to become known veteran. Its already pretty bad when such person becomes forum mod. Similar are "big posters" who are seen in every single thread.

If site chooses in more tight group (i.e. only admins vote, etc), they are type that can get voted as representatives. Not really good either.

Representative that is rep only because he chose proper clique to be part of is not that desirable, and will be bound to follow that clique ethos, which does not make him good representative of that site.

For example, representative from site where wants to be on good terms with anet at all costs would just nod to anything that anet says and object to nothing.

These are but two examples how it can get wrong.

Politics of choosing candidates is important because it implies quality of representative. And quality of representatives overall is what makes this idea work or not.

[Fril Estelin]

Originally Posted by Ctb

Beside all that, we already have a way of voting: money. If I don't like a video game, I'm not going to spend any of my time explaining why to the company, I'm just not going to buy it and I might say negative things about it if people ask. I just don't care enough about video games to worry about, and most other people are the same way.

Thanks Ctb for your participation, all your posts are very helpful (no sarcasm I mean it!). This paragraph made me laugh because this is the thread-killer: if enough people VOTE for this, my thread becomes pointless by its own argument, as it's mean elected out of the realm of important topics and useless discussion .

I personally believe that putting money between us is not the solution, as Anet has proven many times IMHO. We're more than buyers/sellers, customers or lambda-citizens, and IMHO MMOs and social networking is just putting a bit of (disorganised) order in the computing/gaming world. Anet is and has to stay in control (I like your idea of "benevolent tyranny" and careful examination would show that current democracies are far from their model and closer to "malevolent tyrannies"), not only for obvious commercial and legal reasons, but also for the sake of the game. This is NOT about control, but about relationship. It's difficult not to derail into other related topics such as politics or who to trust, but I hope that I'll open the mind of a few people to suggest that we shall not be bound by what we know.

I'll reiterate (and this does not contradict your previous replies, because you know EVE much better than I do) that CCP's decision is revolutionary. As was facebook and WoW in their time (read this btw, timing is of essence and with Gaile leaving I believe this discussion is worth it). One way to move towards a closing of the various "rifts" (PvE vs PvP? UB? titles? etc. etc.) is to seat people at a better organised table.

P.S.: I think Malice Black has usually some interesting points and he's not trolling, so it'd be unfair to rule him out (to be completely honest, I'd ask him his opinion on issues of rare items and economy given what I read that he wrote here), but I guess he does not want to write more on this. Fair enough.

P.P.S.: to zwei2stein, first short answer to your post (have to go do other stuff now) is that you're right, but there are things we can do, read the rules I propose. And it's not a perfect mechanism (voting) but it's clearer and more transparent. It'll take some time to adapt, it take a few steps to realise the rights and wrongs. More precisely: what do you think of the rules I proposed above (message #34)? How would you modify them?

[Numa Pompilius]

/Unsigned.

This is just begging for nepotism and corruption. Which 9 players would be chosen? The leaders of the largest guilds and/or people who know how to rig ("Ron Paul") an online vote of course.

EVE is a special case, in that it is a trade simulator with optional combat. Electing the players is part of the EVE gaming experience; politics and commerce is what EVE is all about, and a vote like this will keep the EVE players occupied for months.

[Darcy]

EVE seems to have implemented this to quiet players' concerns about favoritism, etc. GW has never had that problem. As Gaile and Andrew have constantly told us - no spawning of gold or items possible on the live server.

I think that creating the type of organization that has been described, would not only NOT work, but would suggest to people that it was needed to oversee the ANet employees.

ANet has taken the sampling of player opinions supplied by the forums as the basis for some changes. I don't believe that a "council of player-advisers" would be any better or supply a wider base. Most players won't want to bother, so you end up with the same group electing the same people.

[Tijger]

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

I should have never mentioned the word "democracy" in the title of this thread. Now all people see is this concept and imagine a GW game directed by players. Never. Going. To. Happen.

I'll say it again, patiently: this is about representativity and the relationship between GW players and Anet. End of story, no "stupid playerbase making stupid decisions for Anet" or people getting cookies in basements.

A different picture on this topic:
- imagine a huge tree with at the bottom (ROOT) Anet and at the top (LEAVES) all GW players;
- current situation: our tree of relationship has hundreds of branches, crossing in all directions and with two HUGE nodes just above the Anet root (Gaile and Andrew), and around 10 BIG nodes in the middle (the 9 elite fanforums and GWiki); call it cacophony or organised chaos;
- proposed improvement: add a 3rd HUGE nodes next to the CRs which are connected to the various significant other nodes in the tree (and ultimately to leaves, i.e. players).

P.S.: I still have to reply to may posts, and it'll take me some time to do so.

Great idea as long as you can get your leaves to pay for what they want to have added, which is called a subscription which is exactly what EVE Online has. Then again, the biggest gorilla in the MMO field has no need for any type of democracy (this is WoW).

I wholly disagree btw, players are not owners nor do they or should they have a say in how the product Guild Wars is run and develops, players can vote with their feet and the rest should be left to the owners of the IP, if they choose to share that IP and open it up, thats fine but as long as they do not there's no room for 'democracy' which whill simply mean that the loudest folks on forum such as this get what they want while the big mass of casual players simply wants to play their game now and then without hassle or politics.

[Esan]

Originally Posted by zwei2stein

Biggest thing you have to deal with is also bad player choice of their own representatives, they can make many mistakes.[...]

Which is why choosing representatives is not a viable idea. The community is capable of electing administrators as every wiki will show, but the moment they start thinking of the administrators as politicians the project is doomed.

Wikis are good at maintaining a high signal to noise ratio even when its administrative structure is cloistered and corrupt, mainly because a large amount of administrative tasks traditionally relegated to "moderators" can be performed by anyone. One person cannot wage a war against a community - notice how stupidly ineffective vandals and trolls are on any of the Guild Wars-related wikis. If the admins are likely to become a serious problem (and we don't really have evidence of this from the existing wikis -- if anything, the admins traditionally defer too much to strictly constructivist interpretation of policies, even when it's clear that consensus would support them), they can be term limited out.

[Balan Makki]

Benevolent Dictators are far more effective in Arts and Entertainment. The vision has to be pure and cohesive. I'm dealing with too many "Design by Committee" in my RL profession--it is usually an unmitigated disaster.

Arena Net listens to the fans more than many companies out there. Their vision is best served by one cook, with a full featured menu for fans to order from.

[Kusandaa]

I don't know why, but I like this system we have here so far. You have the people making suggestions on various sites, some being implemented, some not... some of this stuff is actually listened to by the devs. I'm pretty happy with it.

In any case, we can't make everyone happy. No matter how hard people try, no matter which decision you take, somewhere out there a group will whine. And if you implement something they wanted, the rest will whine against it sooner or later.

I don't see how a coucil of gamers would improve that, 'cause you'd have to go past the game aspect of it IMHO if you want something effective... or totally impartial people willing to listen to ideas that make sense.

[Spaced Invader]

Whatever they do, they should definitely put the old band of alpha testers together.

We were a hell of a team.

[Master Knightfall]

Originally Posted by MithranArkanere

Representative democracies sooner or later become corrupt.

Direct democracy is always better.

An in-game poll once in a while would be better. Like Granado Espada's.

(My perfect game would be a mix of GW and GE, XD)

I agree with this an INGAME POLL that is there for ALL the member to participate in if they want to at the Login screen. I don't want any single person or a handful of persons representing ME. I don't care for congress or senate and that one man/person can veto the whole show after the others have agreed. Nope we do not need politics in gaming in any form other than a poll or vote where EVERYONE gets a chance to participate not just some elitists PVPers or PVEers who think what they think is the best after getting elected to a representative position. All politicians and representatives become crooks and liars and self centered as far as I'm concerned.

[Default Name]

Democracy is good. But not here. Players should NEVER have any influence whatsoever over game design decisions. Suggestions yes. Anything remotely resembling a decision. Never.

It's like electing a hippy for the UN security council. That will fail faster than Sonic on steroids. So, this idea fails.

[Stockholm]

If this was implemented the Bot owners would be running GW.
1 account = 1 vote and the players would be out numberd 2 to 1

[Fril Estelin]

Originally Posted by Default Name

Players should NEVER have any influence whatsoever over game design decisions. Suggestions yes.

I'm starting to think that people only read the cover of the book here, i.e. the OP. 3 pages of posts, discussion and explanations? "Don't care, I'll just add one more opinion to the list and one message to my counter."

So let's repeat again: such a council of players would have no power. They'll report questions, concerns and suggestions (which, btw, influence the game design already) in (that's the real question here) a better way than is currently done.

I'm starting to think that may be a lolcatz could explain it better than I do, or shall I draw more diagrams? Or may be I should let the thread die and move on.

[Zahr Dalsk]

Originally Posted by Spaced Invader

Whatever they do, they should definitely put the old band of alpha testers together.

We were a hell of a team.

How about no. I'd rather not have a band of resentful veterans trying to get rid of Heroes, get rid of non-core classes and campaigns, etc.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

I'm starting to think that people only read the cover of the book here, i.e. the OP. 3 pages of posts, discussion and explanations? "Don't care, I'll just add one more opinion to the list and one message to my counter."

So let's repeat again: such a council of players would have no power. They'll report questions, concerns and suggestions (which, btw, influence the game design already) in (that's the real question here) a better way than is currently done.

I'm starting to think that may be a lolcatz could explain it better than I do, or shall I draw more diagrams? Or may be I should let the thread die and move on.

I think this thread is a perfect example of why adding player-elected representatives wouldn't work very well.

[Esan]

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

I'm starting to think that people only read the cover of the book here, i.e. the OP. 3 pages of posts, discussion and explanations? "Don't care, I'll just add one more opinion to the list and one message to my counter."

'Tis the nature of teh interwebs, my friend. In fact, one might even say that arbitrarily paginated forums in the grand phpBB2 tradition are among the worst possible designs for floating ideas, because the best suggestions are buried on page 3 of a 50 page thread, the rest being filled with endless variations of the same three knee-jerk reactions.

This is why a wiki is better, because old topics can be archived and active discussions can be floated. A comment system like reddit.com's might be even better.

[Jecht Scye]

I say let the devs and community relations people do their jobs. Guild Wars is doing fine as it is.