Curse

Puebert · Mar 27, 2007, 05:33 AM // 05:33

Gaile has asked us for many opinions on skill hunter title(s), In-Game Store Items, best weekend events, PvP Balancing, new minis etc.

What happened?

Out of the blue they started asking us our opinions.

I mean, its great! But what event caused this? Were they afriad they were losing some players?

Winterclaw · Mar 27, 2007, 05:37 AM // 05:37

Your guess is as good as mine.

The Ernada · Mar 27, 2007, 05:37 AM // 05:37

They've ALWAYS listened to feedback. There were plenty of improvements to GW due to them listening to that same feedback. It's nothing new. And it's not some desperate measure to keep customers the way you're inferring.

Puebert · Mar 27, 2007, 05:41 AM // 05:41

I know they've listened to feedback, but they have never directly asked the community before (I think).

The only reason I mentioned the "fear of player loss" was because they started asking these questions soon after the AoE change, and many threatened to leave.

Inde · Mar 27, 2007, 05:50 AM // 05:50

Because... they... want to be... nice? Ummm, let's see. They need ideas... possibly? Ermm, they enjoy conspiracy theories we cook up so they can laugh at us? They... have to give a status report... and using player comments gives them 1/2 their writing... less work yeah! Hmm, what else can I come up with. They need "filler" to prove to the community they are still working on Guild Wars The Original. Uhhh, they like to give us discussion topics. Hrmm... it's great publicity and gives us opinionated people 'warmy fuzzy' feelings to type out our long essays.

Whew, okay all I could think of.

arcanemacabre · Mar 27, 2007, 06:00 AM // 06:00

My guess is Gaile woke up one day and a thought smacked her upside the head. She then quickly contacted a group of higher-ups and discussed the idea of posting questions and polls on the websites instead of just passively responding to community output. They all said "Brilliant!", and it was done.

After all, her and Alex Weekes are Community Relations. Their job is to "listen" to community feedback and relay any news from the devs or cooldown any upsetting flames that arise. I honestly think that they never considered actively starting discussions on ideas or solutions to problems. It's a wise idea, IMO.

Shmanka · Mar 27, 2007, 06:04 AM // 06:04

The real question is why didn't they start after 3 months of release date?

Racthoh · Mar 27, 2007, 06:08 AM // 06:08

To show that they're listening so people will buy Guild Wars 2 thinking we'll have the same community voice?

Winterclaw · Mar 27, 2007, 06:09 AM // 06:09

That'd be too obvious plus then they'd have to keep doing it or else the fans will suspect something.

S h e r r y · Mar 27, 2007, 06:41 AM // 06:41

im happy with Gaile finally asking for our opinion, but i dont think we're gona hear anything like:

do you think a/e farming (just an example) is ruining the economy?
i think ANet will continue to nerf anything they wish.. whether the players like it or not.

ANet: whats that? you think a/e farming is good?
player: yes, I think it give people both a chance to make money and a chance to get things they want without having to spend 3 days trying to find a seller
ANet: I'm sorry.. I wasn't listening at all.... *zap* Update:3/30/07 : Shadow Form can no longer be used in conjuction with any other enchantments!BWAHAHAHAHA

Pwny Ride · Mar 27, 2007, 06:55 AM // 06:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Ernada

They've ALWAYS listened to feedback. There were plenty of improvements to GW due to them listening to that same feedback. It's nothing new. And it's not some desperate measure to keep customers the way you're inferring.

That's the problem, they ALWAYS listen to feedback. They ONLY listen to feedback, and not the general suggestions, or else we would have the ability to walk at will, and a larger storage, and other things that are craved by the community.

Gaile Gray · Mar 27, 2007, 07:14 AM // 07:14

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.

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]."

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.

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.

The Bloodrose · Mar 27, 2007, 07:16 AM // 07:16

I say it's "Too little, too late" for this player. I've dusted off my EQ account and am going back to a game that did it right. 15 expansions and almost 10 years of life with no sign of kicking anytime soon. I'll check out GWEN and if it's anything like the hype. I'll dust off my GW account. Play until beta for GW2 then try that. I highly doubt I'll stay around for GW2.

The "community relations" on GW1 was bad enough. Too many Skill balances and weekend events, not enough "Sorrows Furnace" or serious needed (more storage, bigger friends/ignore list, auction house) updates.

EQ1 was out for well over 5+ years before EQ2 was ever thought of. Why is it GW1 is less then 2 years old and we already need a GW2? Granted GW1 is broken in some places, but they could be fixed. Fix ver. 1.0 before trying to sell ver 2.0

Best of luck to all of you that stick around for the haul.

Edit: Sorry but the Razah thing just burned me too much. That and it takes forever for anything to go live. They get a poll and its months before we hear anything about said poll.

Saelfaer · Mar 27, 2007, 07:22 AM // 07:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Puebert

Gaile has asked us for many opinions on skill hunter title(s), In-Game Store Items, best weekend events, PvP Balancing, new minis etc.

What happened?

Out of the blue they started asking us our opinions.

I mean, its great! But what event caused this? Were they afriad they were losing some players?

i have no idea,
maybe the first one was out of the blue, (ALL SPECULATION) there could have been a discussion at arenanet, weither the skill hunter should be changed or not... (maybe with the fact in the back of the head that there would be no next chapter, just an exp, and that they should make skill hunter sort of final..)
thus 1 dev at arenanet said, now what do the players want.
then they all agreed to try and make polls and discussions about it.

and maybe the first one was evaluated as a good thing and they decided to do this more, consult the players to see what they prefer among the possible options.

not that everything you say in such a topic will be implemented, but that everything you suggest will be evaluated and seen if it somewhere has a benefit to put that in the game (of course looking at technical issues too, develop time, dev cost, implementing x might have influence on feature y and z, ...)

*edit*
ok i missed gaile posting inhere, i was typing my own msg to long lol
but its almost as i said, only i took the skillhunter as an example though it might have started with another issue/feature.
its just to help out the people following the community, make the data more centralised instead of scattered around in dozens of threads.

Kool Pajamas · Mar 27, 2007, 07:25 AM // 07:25

The only problem is that some people seem to think Anet and its employees are magic fairies that can wave magic wands and make things happen instantly, but in reality they are a business and have real world limitations.

Gaile Gray · Mar 27, 2007, 07:27 AM // 07:27

See, Bloodrose, that's the nice thing. You can take a break and come back, if and when you choose. You don't feel you have to play a certain number of hours to "get your money's worth" or that if you decide to leave, you'll risk losing your levels or your items or your characters. Step away as you desire, and your account--characters, levels, titles, items--will be here waiting for you when you choose to come back.

And just think -- in the meantime, you're not "renting your space" with a monthly fee.

The Bloodrose · Mar 27, 2007, 07:28 AM // 07:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kool Pajamas

The only problem is that some people seem to think Anet and its employees are magic fairies that can wave magic wands and make things happen instantly, but in reality they are a business and have real world limitations.

You mean Gaile is not a Magic Fairie with a magic wand?!?! LIES!

Kook~NBK~ · Mar 27, 2007, 07:28 AM // 07:28

They're asking for opinions to make all of you little GW puppets think that you've actually got a voice in how they pull your little strings. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Seriously though, I can think of several reasons why they began asking for opinions:

1. In the case of the Skill Hunter title track, it was the community that expressed its displeasure at not being able to max the title. A-Net Offered a solution and wanted to see where we, as a community stood on the issue. (We want it, so what's the hold up now?)

2. In the case of Special events, there's only a relatively few people at A-Net with ideas for these things. Why not ask your fan base for ideas to keep the special weekends fresh and interesting?

3. In the case of skill balances, the more people involved with testing changes, the better. Either that's something that it took a while to leearn, or something that took them a while to figure out how to do.

Corinthian · Mar 27, 2007, 07:40 AM // 07:40

Anet could just put the polls on the log-in screen, forcing people to answer before being able to pick a character to play.

Gaile Gray · Mar 27, 2007, 07:41 AM // 07:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Bloodrose

You mean Gaile is not a Magic Fairie with a magic wand?!?! LIES!

I'm not?
*reluctantly puts away pixie dust*

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corinthian

Anet could just put the polls on the log-in screen, forcing people to answer before being able to pick a character to play.

No, no, we want them to be voluntary and fun! I have a request in to the Web Team and they tell me that we may be able to start doing polls on our website in the future. But for now, I really like the way things are going and I know we're getting a great deal of useful and helpful information from your participation in the polls.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kool Pajamas

The only problem is that some people seem to think Anet and its employees are magic fairies that can wave magic wands and make things happen instantly, but in reality they are a business and have real world limitations.

Yes, that's true. There are limitations on how much we can do at any given time, but at any given time, we're doing quite a bit. Consider the current timeframe:

Allowing the replacement of Heroes' pets (last week)
Changes to acquisition of Razah (coming soon)
Updates to the maps and mechanics of Heroes' Ascent (ongoing)
The addition of automated tournaments (coming soon)
Pet control improvements (in testing)
More ladders (coming soon)
Hard Mode (coming soon)
Discussions about PvE mesmers, bow skills, and a ton more.

I think when you look at that, it's a pretty impressive list, don't you agree?