Why is ANet asking the community now?

[Puebert]

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

Ok, you guys are just dying for a new conspiracy theory, I can feel it in my bones. Polls do not take the place of suggestions, or bug reports, or other means of communication, which we also attend to. But polls are often the offshoot of suggestions, and regardless of their source, they are very helpful to us.

I was trying to avoid the "I think they're conspiring against us" feel, but I knew it was going to come off that way.

What happened was simply a natural progression. Instead of gathering feedback from many threads, I thought it would be more efficient to put up a poll or a single thread to focus the feedback. (We continue to track the broader threads, as well.) Consider that there might be 10 or 20 mentions a day of ideas for the 2nd birthday gift, but they might be in 10 different threads. During some days, 50 opinions might be expressed about party size for Heroes' Ascent, but again, those opinions might appear in various threads. Data is really valuable, and with a Dev Poll thread, we can get the info we need--your opinions--very clearly and show "Here are the preferences of the community, as expressed on Guild Wars Guru, as far as [this subject]."

Was there something wrong with the ingame character selection screen? You could've had a button similar to the ingame store button with all of your polls so people that don't know of Guru could still vote if they wanted to.

I didn't think of organizing all ideas into one thread was a reason, scince most of the people here do that for you.

I think one of the first Dev Polls (before I called them Dev Polls) was for the Guild Wars Official (on-line) store, and it started back in July of last year, so this process isn't exactly new. Over time, we have found the polls more and more helpful. In fact, in the last week we spent quite a bit of time gathering data from two different polls to share with various teams. (The online store thread was difficult because it wasn't a "choose one" listing, but random posts. Good feedback, but time consuming to digest!)

The current poll--about Weekend Events--is going to help us map out upcoming weekends, and the designers were really pleased at the idea of hearing from you. I believe that our various CCs have posted the poll in non-English forums as well. Come early next week, we hope to gather all the feedback from the various player groups and create a spreadsheet to send over to the Design Team.

So, some of the reason was that it was easier to read? that does make sense. So, this isn't limited to Guru? I should have known that. :S

I do admit the notion of polls is growing. I hope you don't mind! Polls are so very valuable to us. (In fact, I have two more I want to start up very soon!) My hope is that everyone will take the time to vote or to share a few words. The more information and input we get, the better that Guild Wars will be.

I like the polls! I was just curious why you started them now (I didn't know about the in-game store one).

Thanks for paying so much attention.

[lyra_song]

Originally Posted by Coran Ironclaw

so, who is going to judge who is important and reasonable and who is not?

Anet obviously.

[AJD]

Originally Posted by Enchanted Warrior

Gaile,

This is a HUGE mistake, you are getting a very narrow view of what the players want. As popular as we'd like to think this site is, most will not answer polls here because the fear flaming etc. Your main source of input here is from trolls and board dwellers. They hardly can speak for the entire gw gaming world.

I'm of the opinion the request for input is merely an attempt at playcating us into thinking we have a say. It's a PR move to give the appearance of concern so the gaming world at large thinks you really care. Too many concerns have been voiced here and ignored to think otherwise.

I'm sorry, I'm not some starry eyed kid that thinks companies are as they appear. I know all to well if the rev's do not increase gw will go the way of the dodo. The common thought by most online gaming companies seems to be, make as much as you can then move on. Judging from financial reports lineage is not doing as well as it once did, so no doubt there is a push to make gw more viable. Hopefully they get it right.

Some may think I'm being a hard a.., but I simply refuse to accept cute remarks and failed attempts at being cool, to take the place of actual, genuine, interest and concern.

That said I also acknowledge you have a set agenda and can only speak on subjects preapproved by your superiors. Your role is PR, which as some will agree is spin control. Your job is to put a positive spin on all things GW.

If there is an aire of true concern then read thru the posts, you will see several repeated concerns.

1) Better loot
2) More indepth content
3) Anything to reduce the rampant boredom now growing within game.
4) Make all missions doable by any level of player, not just the uber ones.

Case in point, GOA, 90% of the people that make it that far have zero chance of doing any of the missions, either by not being a strong player or because they do not have cookie cutter builds. GW knew this with Prophecies, then saw it in Factions and still insited on making some missions some unbeleiveably hard only the hard core gamers could even dream of finishing them. And please don't say they made it that far they must have talent. They can pay their way there, and yes pay to complete the GOA mssions, but with that in mind, what's the point? Was hiring runners the main idea when these mission were made so hard? Does gw really not care, and just think "You suck stop whinning"?

Where was GW's concern when they were planned out? Or is GW satisfied with reduced numbers of active players?

Well said, your post pretty much sums up how I feel and then some things I had not really thought about. Nothing to add but this-Gaile, do a Dev Poll about storage.

[unienaule]

Ninety percent of people who make it to the Gate of Anguish fail? Are you #*#$ing kidding me?! First off, you make up statistics, then you claim that the Gate of Anguish is TOO HARD?! If a player is unable to beat it, it's time to learn a simple fact about Guild Wars. It is sometimes necessary to change your build. Ok, so, you have "your build," which you love and won't play anything else. Guess why you're failing? It's because you need to use a different build. You can't always play whatever you want to simply because you feel like it. Do you have to go "cookie cutter"? No. I didn't use Spoil Victor to kill Shiro down there. (I don't have it. ) But did I use other forms of melee hate and spread out my heroes to take advantage of the downside of melee (short range)? Yes. I have no sympathy for people who perform the electronic equivalent of bashing their heads against a wall ten times and then wonder why their head never got through. The ability to analyze your own mistakes and the willingness to change when you're wrong isn't something that only applies to Guild Wars, it applies to LIFE.

[Coran Ironclaw]

Originally Posted by lyra_song

Anet obviously.

that's why it is important that all opinions are gattered in the same place. reasonable and not reasonables ones.
Important and not important ones.

[lyra_song]

Originally Posted by Coran Ironclaw

that's why it is important that all opinions are gattered in the same place. reasonable and not reasonables ones.
Important and not important ones.

Yes....i agree.

But the point still remains.....

My posts are a response to LordFFM, who seems to be suggesting that Anet doesn't read these forums, because some of the things they add, or tweak, seem to be the last thing on player's minds, while things players seem to be concerned about are largely ignored.

Just because you post it up and just because Anet reads it.
Don't expect them to give as much a damn about your posts as you do, because they might not see it as an important issue as you do.