Some Info about Community Relations

[Alderin]

Originally Posted by Silly Lily

Everyone here do me a favor:

Go to Monster.com
Type in "Community Relations"
Click on ANY position available
Compare the job descriptions and requirements to what Andrew and Gaile do

Then you'll see why people complain. It is easy for them to say "guys don't complain because what you are asking us is not part of our job" and for the general majority to agree. However, as an informed and interested consumer of Guild Wars I would at least like CR members to do what they're supposed to.

P.S. no offense to either Andrew or Gaile, I think they're wonderful people, they just happen to massively fail at CR. You could stll fix it in time for GW2

Problem is, it's easier for most to just agree and hope to keep 'conga lines' than it is for them to find out what a CR is supposed to do. Telling your customers "You aren't saying things I like so I'm just not going to bother with you all anymore!" and "We are professionsal so all the problems are you people!" are some of the worst things to do and far from being an even halfway decent CR let alone a good one. Both PvP and PvE needs decent CR people; Arena Net's CRs making topics like this one shows that more than ever.
No matter how many times it's brought up to many players are willing to overlook the issues the poor CR causes because they are afraid they will lose them permanently rather than getting someone decent who knows how to be a CR. Anyone ever wonder why the overwhelming majority of the community can want something (ie. something other than more Minipets or a decent HardMode rather than thoughtless creature buffs) yet the community gets the exact opposite and the CRs seem to think those are so great dispite it's not being what the majority want?

The whole 1/4th thing is quite amusing as they tell people to go to the forums so they can find out what the players want then say the forums don't have enough people to conclude much of anything? Guild Wars has sold over 3 million copies and there are many many merged accounts so those take the actual number of seperate accounts down considerablely. Then there are those who no longer play taking away more. So given what is on the forums showing what they want, it's a pretty darn good populace to use. Even national surveys only use a couple thousand people out of the many millions that live in the country.

Currently PvPist are mainly blaming PvEist for the shortcommings of PvP and PvEist are blaming PvPist for the short commings of PvE. While the game holds fault for forcing the skills used in both, it's neither PvP's nor PvE's fault. It is the lack of good CR that understands the game well enough and cares more for helping the players than idol worship. It's also the lack of the Devs getting correct information from CRs plus the Devs being stubborn in admitting when they didn't make the best choice. Knowing if they didn't is what makes people stop playing the game for good and makes some stop and start comming to the forums to show they aren't liking it. The two latest examples have been Loot Scaling and Soul Reaping nerf in PvE.

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

The dev team is in a “damned if we do damned if we don’t” situation because we cannot possibly make the game 100% perfect for 3.5 million individuals with individual tastes, desires, and opinions. Unfortunately, there seem to be some who feel we should blindly listen to them even when the very threads they are posting suggestions or feedback in show the reaction from the community is very much divided. Honestly, if half the people posting in the thread are strongly against an idea, it should be clear there is no “easy answer” since no matter what is decided, it will go against the wishes of some of the community.

3.5 million individuals? Please, don't try to exaggerate unless ArenaNet suddenly more than trippled their sales in the past few months since as of December 13, 2006 it was annouced "Guild Wars franchise, sales for one of the world's leading subscription-free online roleplaying games have surpassed three million units worldwide " at http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/750/750870p1.html . Or are you trying to say each and every copy of Guild Wars sold is serperated and none where every combined and thusly making every copy unique to an individual and no individual ever bought more than one copy of a chapter nor more than one chapter?

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

Honestly, if half the people posting in the thread are strongly against an idea, it should be clear there is no “easy answer” since no matter what is decided, it will go against the wishes of some of the community.

See that would be true but then we have CRs who pick one person and claim them as the whole. A good example was in the Asura MiniPet thread where Gaile picked one person who agreed with her, while a majority did not, and said " I told you guys that you would love the "growly face" he makes! I feel fully vindicated now!! " I know putting a positive spin is required but ignoring the majority and going with the minority just because they agree with you does nothing but show biased information getting back to the devs.

[Lasers]

Anywho, Gaile, you think we want to know what you're doing. Wrong. What we want is to talk to someone, nay, anyone, involved with PvP on a continuing basis. I don't want to talk to you - I don't want to ask you questions about Pvp, what's being worked on, why updates haven't come - because I know (as does everyone else on this forum) that you do not specialize in PvP. I want to talk with PvP people involved with the game (even if it's just Izzy). We want to talk to developers about why they can't do stuff, or why it's taking so long. Not just a "it was delayed" robot response.

We want PvP communication, not more from Gaile and Andrew. Please note, this is not an insult to Gaile or Andrew, because it is obvious they aren't knowledgeable in the areas of PvP.

I would probably start playing again if we were able to have a chat with someone involved in the PvP side of the game, who could let us know what's going on, why we can't do certain things, etc etc. What would it hurt, besides making the community happier?

[SerenitySilverstar]

Originally Posted by Lasers

I would probably start playing again if we were able to have a chat with someone involved in the PvP side of the game, who could let us know what's going on, why we can't do certain things, etc etc. What would it hurt, besides making the community happier?

Ok, talking in a rational manner, this has already been answered:

Originally Posted by Gaile

Getting a direct conduit would be cool, I know. But it would also be enormously time-consuming and inefficient. We'd rather have the designers designing.

http://guildwars.incgamers.com/forum...=454808&page=9

They can either spend all their time responding to discussion, or they can spend their timing refining and designing. Which will it be?

[Theus]

Originally Posted by SerenitySilverstar

Ok, talking in a rational manner, this has already been answered:



They can either spend all their time responding to discussion, or they can spend their timing refining and designing. Which will it be?

Um..isn't it Gaile's job to tell us such things?

[ThisIsNi]

Originally Posted by SerenitySilverstar

They can either spend all their time responding to discussion, or they can spend their timing refining and designing. Which will it be?

That is a rediculous statement. Having someone in CR representing the PvP side of things doesnt mean they are spending "all their time". If you have just a single person like Gaile or Andrew who deals with PvP, things wouldnt be as bad.

[Uca Firewind]

Well, I don't know too much about this subject to be frank. But clearly those speaking on Gaile and Andrew's gaming time don't know them. I'm in the alliance with Andrew and he is primarily a PvP player. He does PvE, too but his joy, as far as I know, is PvP.

And just so I can get it out there... We shouldn't blame the liaisons. *They* didn't design the game. I can't imagine playing "go-between" between angry GW-ers and stressed designers (I mean... don't *you* get stressed at work?) is all it's cracked up to be. The community team's work is appreciated by me and mine, I know.

[samcobra]

basically, what I've gleaned from her posts is that her job description includes a hodgepodge of things in addition to being the poster-girl for this game. Since she decided to accept her position as poster-girl for this game, she is in prime position to take the flak when people are dissatisfied with the game, as each job has both its ups and downs. Gaile, if you are unable to adequately deal with the community and accept that since you are the public face of ANET, you deserve and need to accept all the shit that is thrown at you about all the resentment people harbor against the problems in this game, you need to resign from your position, realize it isn't the job for you and find something else to do.

[Silly Lily]

Originally Posted by Uca Firewind

Well, I don't know too much about this subject to be frank. But clearly those speaking on Gaile and Andrew's gaming time don't know them. I'm in the alliance with Andrew and he is primarily a PvP player. He does PvE, too but his joy, as far as I know, is PvP.

I would like to know if Andrew Patrick has ever been on a top guild's vent?
Has he played with these guilds that have been around from the start?
Does he play with those who are just starting out?
Does he know who in the community is really knowledgeable about this game?
Does he know the basics to forming a build for gvg?
Does he know how gvg works?
Does he know that pvp isnt limited to RA and TA and that every single pvp arena is different from one another?
Does he even UNDERSTAND why soul reaping needed a fix?
Was Andrew present during Jade map testing?
Was he present during test AT's?
Does he gvg, HA, TA, and RA daily?
Has he done all this from the start?
Does he know what the metagame is without having to read about it?

The CR I want for pvp should know those basics. If you dont play this game like the more dedicated pvp-ers in this community then how do you expect to gain some credibility?

Now if the answer is yes to all those than kudos, show it more though, cos I've been around the pvp world for a long time and during Celestial Tourneys i never saw him be vocal, I never heard big teams talk about Andrew. In fact I didn't even know who he was and I have played this game for 2 years.

I realize that Andrew and Gaile are not designers or devs, but at least know your product if youre gonna speak on its behalf. I think Gaile is wonderful for pve, heck i used to pve at one point too and would be present at her LA visits. But neither gaile nor andrew have ever been involved in the pvp community. The fact that they listen to guru so much which is predominantly pve shows that.

I wonder if they can even name top players without going into obs mode.

COMMUNITY RELATIONS = RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR COMMUNITY

If you are a pvp CR then you should have a relationship with the pvp community, thats from top guilds to the very newest. That way you would understand NEEDS and could actually present those 4-6 page weekly reports with some credibility.

not rocket science...

[Francis Crawford]

Those of you who are arguing there should be a CR very tuned into the needs of the most serious PvPers -- how many individual PvPers, total, are you talking about here?

[Lasers]

Just like Gaile talks to every PvEr out there, PvPers should have a guy who comes to HA and talks to us. I mean, that's the very, VERY least that should happen. But that doesn't even scratch the surface of fixing this game. We just need a lot more communication in general with people who actually know PvP.

And Francis, we don't want them "tuned" to our needs, we want them to fix the bloody game. Because at the moment, there is hardly a PvP game at all.

[EternalTempest]

There are so many games where the dev / design team are in an ivory tower and the PR can do NOTHING but put out fires.

Andrew, Gaile, and other's play the game, they make "suggestions" from the players, the report back to us when they can, they CAN'T always say what they know. They do a great job.

GW has been in "flux" with changes from day 1 and has never been static. They have an incredible difficult job.

Reasons why they can't say everything (theoretical situation):
hmm we want to try say an auction house, PR reports info, people go nuts... 6 month dev team finds out the amount of changes resources to alter the game is just to much, it gets scraped for now... people form lynch mobs.

The fact is the game NEVER had the feature and until they opened there mouth ppl "perception" of the game was better but due to nothing but "talk" that ended up becoming worse.

How many times do you see workers at a place that servers food go to another place that serves food to eat lunch, do you want complete openness from company (hint it never happens anywhere) about which shipment of ingredients barely passes edible. We for get real humans make a company, if your one of the employed, all the politics, and stupid stuff that can happen at work happens everywhere, but when we think of another company all we think of is "image".

The culture of Guru has changed over time as well, ppl are much quicker to shout and bicker vs constructive criticism.

There is nothing wrong with hey, I don't like change X, here are some of the reason's why. And when ppl disagree with you, counter there argument. 2 parties screaming and shouting gets ignored.. unless you join the screaming and shouting. I do understand why, when you love something, your passionate about it. Just think if you apply these fits to real life. Whine about how unfair is something to your boss, and when he says "no" keep pushing it.

If you read all the info about GW2, it looks like Anet is trying to address the issues that starting to become a problem or people been vocal about. PvP vs Pve, distribution of players across three games making ghost towns, the increased complications of skill changes due to the integrated pvp / pve system.

If you find you don't like GW anymore, take a break or move on. It's a game. Since it's always in flux, in 6 months, see what the changes are, you may like it again or not.

[Diablo™]

I just want to hop into this loveless thread of raging fire and express my sincere love and appreciation of what Arenanet is doing.



Big hugs to Gaile and Andrew. Because without them, Guild Wars would've been just another faceless entity, changing at will, without humanity.

Most changes I love, some changes I don't, but in the end at least I know there is someone I can communicate with.

Keep up the good work.

[The Great Al]

Alderin, I completely agree with you and was completely shocked when Andrew said they were catering to 3.5 million people. Lets say for instance that there are now 3.5 million units sold. I would say, that there are MAXIMUM 2 million people who have accounts, probably a lot less, considering the people who have 2 or (like most of us here) 3 chapters. Also, I myself know a LARGE amount of people who no longer play. Considering that they've sold MAYBE 3.5 million units over the past 2+ years, I'd say that there have to be best case a million, million and a half active users. I wouldn't even be surprised if there were less than a million. Half of my guild hasn't been online in a month, hardly anyone on my friends list is on anymore, and I highly doubt I'm the only one to experience this. Even best case 1.5 million, while impressive, just makes it a huge lie to say that they're catering to 3.5 million individuals

[DreamWind]

There are just way too many people apologizing for Gaile and Andrew so much that they miss the point altogether.

Listen, I don't hate either one of the people, but the fact remains that there is NO PVP REPRESENTATIVE FOR THE PVP COMMUNITY. NONE. There is nobody who talks to the community on a regular basis that has a strong grasp of PvP and what needs to be fixed. That is a big problem, and a large reason why so many have quit, and many others are frustrated.

And I am tired of Anet or CR not admitting to any fault or problem whatsoever. As far as I'm concerned there has been a ton of fault and problems proven throughout this thread.

[Silly Lily]

Originally Posted by EternalTempest

There are so many games where the dev / design team are in an ivory tower and the PR can do NOTHING but put out fires.

Andrew, Gaile, and other's play the game, they make "suggestions" from the players, the report back to us when they can, they CAN'T always say what they know. They do a great job.

I understand your point, but that's just it. Gaile posted earlier that devs and other designers read the forums themselves also, so they arent the only ones looking at these problems. Meaning Gaile and Andrew's job is also done by everyone else in Anet apparently.

There are degrees for this sort of position, people go to university to study PR, Advertising and Mass Communications. It IS a tough job, a very tough one, its not just putting out fires. People dedicate four years for a degree, maybe more. It isn't just reading forums and pointing out the obvious.

No offense intended, but again, go to Monster.com and see what a "CR" position actually entitles.

For those of you who keep saying we are just flaming Gaile and Andrew, we aren't. They are lovely people, but we aren't posting just to be haters or rude. We are posting because there is something seriously wrong with the way CR is run in GW PvP, it has cost them hundreds of players and it keeps spiraling downwards.

Don't miss the point please, I for one am in no way trying to insult these lovely people, I am just severely disappointed that I have invested time and money into this game and all I get are CRs that are complaining because gamers are acting like gamers. PvP has never been represented, and two years later it still gets ignored.

[Francis Crawford]

Originally Posted by Silly Lily

We are posting because there is something seriously wrong with the way CR is run in GW PvP, it has cost them hundreds of players and it keeps spiraling downwards.

How much revenue do you think Anet has received from those hundreds of now-disappointed PvPers?

[Diablo™]

I think the reason why there are so many sympathy posts (including mine) is because the other posts seems to come off as:

"I'm a PvPer and I represent the majority. Because my demands were not met, you CRs fail at your jobs..."

Which seems harsh because they're not blaming anyone, but merely indicating that such frictions cannot be avoided. We all dream of that perfect game where players and developers live in harmony...

...but here we are, dreamers clustered into a group of angry mobs for a dream unfullfilled, deluded into believing each one of us represent the majority... all the while we forget that there's a place out there called Asia, whose player base might outnumber us 3 to 1 (this statistic, like most statistics, are pulled right out of my you-know-what, but it's a theory).

On the other hand, we may or may not be important in the grand scheme of player communities in Guild Wars, but their job is to make us feel like we are. Certainly if we don't feel this way, then it's our job to speak up and communicate this with them... but so far many of us have only managed to squabble, complain, and sling mud at their faces. One or two of these comments may contain important and helpful suggestions, but when you covered them in piles of dung, its hard to find it.

Personally, I believe there are two kinds of people in this world:
People who demand more and appreciate less,
and People who demand less and appreciate more.

[ReiNaruto]

Originally Posted by Diablo™

I just want to hop into this loveless thread of raging fire and express my sincere love and appreciation of what Arenanet is doing.

Big hugs to Gaile and Andrew. Because without them, Guild Wars would've been just another faceless entity, changing at will, without humanity.

Most changes I love, some changes I don't, but in the end at least I know there is someone I can communicate with.

Keep up the good work.

I think that Diablo is the most worthy person in this thread.

A lot of thanks to both Gayly and Andrew.

You are doing a really good work, and a lot of people appreciate it. Just forgive us if sometimes we get rough.

[mattpwill]

To me, the removal of the informative (to me anyway), intelligent and constructive posts from top GvG players in this thread speaks volumes about how customers are treated. They didn't make me think any worse of the company, if that's what you were worried about

[Sophitia Leafblade]

Originally Posted by XvArchonvX

While that may be true, I hope it never becomes always. Thank you.

Ill Back this and the others that have said similar things. Anet youve made an amazing game and uve continually expanded and upgraded it for free. Thats alot more than most companys do for their games.

So heres a big thanks from a fan who thinks Gw happens to be one of the best games ive ever played but if u happen to nerf my build im gonna........ hehe just kidding Im looking forwards to EotN and Gw2 and all the new features they bring.

Thanks again everyone at Anet and keep up the great work. Lots of Love, Soph