Some Info about Community Relations

In my opinion Andrew makes very valid points. I hope more people will take these things into consideration in the future. I know most of us would like to see something implemented into the game, or have a few things changed, but bashing them for not doing it is uncalled for. I know if I was in their shoes I would be less inclined to do anything with such behavior.

Anyway to Andrew and the rest of the team don't worry. There are plenty of people who love the game and all the fan art, fan sites, and videos prove that. Just about every game forum turns into a place for people to vent. I've seen much worse than what goes on in GW forums. Keep up the good work and thank you.

respectfully...

You mention that currently many are complaining about 'too many changes making the game less fun'. Were changes to loot scaling or soul reaping or armor stacking (after 2 years of use) really things that someone was requesting? And knowing that making changes based on complainers was just going to upset people who were happily playing, anet made these sweeping changes anyway?

It seems from what has been said that these changes were made by the designers arbitrarily based on how they want the game to be played and it seems like much of the current predicament of the CR team was created by Anet and not by the community.

Some things are just inexcusable though. The long wait between skill updates, and the very little they actually do outside of nerfing bots. The lack of support in whole for the PvP game. The erratic changes made to some skills for really no reason at all, or changes that not only do not fix the problem in question but effect many more people as well.

Hearing things like trade improvements will be added to the game, or the Mesmer class will be re-examined, then never having these things come through is unacceptable, more so when they are spread by the companies own PR crew.

Sure the majority of this forum will like anything ANET does, but if the people are already happy why cater to them? They will be happy with anything most likely. However the vocal minority who gets trashed all the time raises many good points that are ignored.

For example with loot scaling when it was mentioned by a PR rep that players should trade their higher end items they get. How are players to do this without spamming? Now spamming, which was an indirect result of the loot change and suggestion is being cut back on, so what should the players do in this situation? Saying to trade out of game at your own risk is really not a viable suggestion to most.

Seems throughout the history of Guild Wars only one thing was given full attention and that was stopping bots even if it meant the community as a whole will have to suffer for it.

While the majority I will agree with you here, there are a couple points you address in this that are simply a little off. The majority of the community will post about what they feel will help the game and most of the time you are correct, that it will enfringe gameplay on another type of player, thus being a problem not only in the player's own mind or playstyle, but also in the game which you as a company produced. While you addressed that said posters will only post because they are upset with the current situation and avoid gameplay, this simply is not alwasy the case. Many players do actively play this game and have a great deal of interest in the future of this game, and thus will post on matters as such. Many players in this community will offer solutions and suggestions not as a "MUST IMPLIMENT" idea, but merely something that the dev team might not have taken into consideration from that viewpoint. While yes there are ideas that are brought up that are strictly irrelevant such as guns and mounts, there are ideas that would only benefit your game and company. The trading system while in theory was a good idea, once implimented into the game ended up being terrible. The major cities such as Lions Arch, Kaineg Center, and Kamadahn have all became the major trading posts due to the fact that they are easily reachable by characters of all 3 campaigns. Many complaints, even account bannings due to this trading system have recently been implimented which leads to the alienation of players from trading with others in fear of reprocutions from your company. While yes, due to the current database system that Guildwars has implimented an auction house might not be feesable at the current time, but perhaps looking into suggestions and ideas that could help the current trade system implimented into the game at its current state will help players ease trade and not fear reprocutions taken upon then for trying to make some money to progress through out the game.

Many valid complaints about the updates effecting gameplay do raise an interesting point. While your game model was to allow the PVE and PVP communities to be entertwined with each other, the reality is that this will never work since both sides have a different objective and a diferent outlook on the games design, mechanics, and gameplay. Yes there will always be complaints by the players on what is being done, or being introduced that will change the gameplay they are used too, for better or worse. But some of these said changed will ultimately hurt both PVP and PVE gameplay. As customer relations for your company it should be your job and responsibility to gather feedback from each type of gameplay, both good and bad and use this as a general concensus as to how the updates are going over with the community and where the updates could be improved upon for future implimentation, and sadly this isnot the case. I will give you a specific example. In a recent interview, Mike O'brien said that the lightbringer and sunspear tracks were implimented and viewed as a success, yet a majority of the community had commented on that they were repetitive and seen as nothing more than a grind which they were not pleased with. This isn't a fault of the players nor the company, but a lack of general communication and misinformation. The killcount issue in HA is another. It is generally viewed by everyone who plays it as a failure in design that promotes nothing more than a freeforall zergfest, little creativity, no real useful gameplay mechanics, and in general a bad gameplay design. This game style was removed from hall of heroes for this very same reason, yet left implimented in broken tower and courtyard despite your community asking for this to be looked into as a bad gameplay design that promotes nothing but unfairness to all teams involved.

And thus leads to the main problem that the community has become upset over, is the lack of adequate information that is given to us as a player and the community. While it is not your job to hold our hand and inform us everytime your team decided to pick up a pencil and write down an idea, it IS your job however to inform us about the status and development of said ideas that are knowingly going to be inplimented into the game. An excellent example of this can be found on both sides of gameplay. The Automated Tournament System and the Sunspear skills come to mind in these. In the AT's case, you informed the community that they would be implimented in January, thus unlocking the ladder for the last time. While January came and went, it wasnt until 3 months later that the PVP community recieved any information on the progress or testing of these tournaments. Not a word inbetween wise on what might be causing the holdups, or what is being done to bring these into development, while the PVP community sat idly and waited and at mere mention of bringing them up as being late, got flamed for being a bunch of whiners because our update was late. Many of the PVP community left as seeing that this was just another idle promise that wasnt goign to be here on time. The Sunspear skills are the perfect example of the same situation in PVE. The Sunspear skills were said to be included into the update that introduced hard mode, with talk of them even being introduced with the implimentation of Nightfall. Yet the hard mode update comes and goes and the PVE community is left with little to no knowledge of when, how, or if these updates were comming. The armor inscriptions is another update that comes to mind as it created an imbalance between the campaigns. Yet when asked about these changes, as well as others, all the community was met with was a "were looking into it" and thats all.

So it isn't the fact that the community wants your head. The community as a whole thanks you for providing the game and service that you do. We appreciate the fact that you have one of the top selling games on the market that has provided many of us with countless hours of enjoyment and look forward to what this company has to offer the Guild Wars franchise in the future and as a whole, would like to help you in growing this franchise. You dont have to listen to every idea that the community suggests, you dont have to impliment every idea that the community asks of you. Your company has a reputation of listening to its playerbase which is a good thing as there are many companies that do not listen and value their customer opinions as your company does, and we thank you for that. All the community is saying is that there should be a little bit better communication from the Community Relations department towards the players concerns and about current standing of updates being implimented.

If that's the case, the situation is worse off than I feared.

Is it ever okay to admit doing a bad job? From the PvP side, we were told that with the new AT system we'd see more frequent updates. That wasn't true. Before that, the AT system came half a year late and we were left in GvG limbo making +2/-2 every match. Then when it comes out the schedule and the system don't work for most teams, and for those that it does we see tournaments with 6 forfeits and 2 games played.

We're not angry because we want something a certain way. We're angry because we were lead to believe it would be a certain way and then we're let down. Understand that. (I'm talking about the PvP community only here, I know some PvEers breathe fire when they talk about an auction house and that was never part of the game)

Secondly, if you really played or watched the competitive PvP modes closely you'd see all the stagnation problems. You'd see ritspike, SFway, Paraway in HA, hexway and Recall split in GvG, HaO abuse in HB, and then you'd agree with most of our points already. That's how we feel. Play the game more.

Look at the updates, and see what majority of the updates changed. Almost every big update, an area of botting was hit.

I feel that everyone around here are being rather selfish lately, it almost makes me ashamed to post here, The Riverside Inn has gone from a General topic location, into a big complaint desk. The people here don't seem to accept that it's partly our fault for the problems in GW, and place all of the blame solely on A-net. I'm sure the vast majority of GW do thank the CR team, and A-net for that matter.

Sorry, but the "we are professionals" line isn't cutting it anymore. We can all read Ensign, an amateur, who has demonstrably superior design to any of you. We gave you the benefit of the doubt for months. Now we need reasons, not excuses.

If there are legit technical, budgetary, or simple preference as to why you reject the consensus of the majority, fine. Tell us. I will listen and respect that. But I won't respect the "we are professionals" crap or the "we are listening, we just won't do anything about it" approach.

I'll say this -- no amount of lemontarts, fan clubs, or well worded announcements will build relationships with the pvp community. Explanations will. Playing with us will. Talking to us will. SHOWING you respect and understand us will. Anet has failed horribly with regard to reaching out to the pvp community. A lot of people are lingering still, but its just a matter of time until a game with similar potential to GW reaches out, and the exodus will be complete.

No, not at all. Its not a balance between the happy people playing and the unhappy people posting. Most posters post the same regardless -- they just get louder and more angry as they get more frustrated by flaws that don't get addressed or even commented on. Or they quit.

Rather than your seesaw, its more like this: unhappy consumers switch games. Most will do so without saying a word, but some will make angry posts, in particular those who invested thousands of hours and don't want to give it up. You can already see that people who aren't happy quit playing (see the exodus of korean and american guilds, particularly the skilled ones). You can hear the complaints by the few (ensign and others), often with examples and reasoning. When hundreds of people chime in and there doesn't appear to be any legitimate difference of opinion among the relevant community, you better take notice. You can ignore it and watch as we go to fury/warhammer, or you can adapt.

As for the 6v6, that's a pretty misleading picture you are painting. Sure, the people on GWO said they liked it...but they don't HOH. GvGers on guru also liked it....but they don't HOH. The devs knew it would be wildly unpopular, but made a call to do it anyhow because they thought it would draw more people into HOH (which I agreed with). Then the poop hit the fan when the people who actually played HOH found out.

Was it different people posting? No, you just listened to the wrong ones.
Did opinions change? No, not really, other than perhaps a few devs.
Was it a PR disaster? Yup.

Similar examples can be found in other areas, such as game balance. You should flatly discard the opinions of the irrelevant (those who don't gvg or for any other reason have no stake in the outcome, such as pvers, very casual pvpers, and so on) and listen to those who matter and who have shown understanding of the game (the pvp community).

If you equate joe bloe the troll farmer to ensign, sure you can find varied opinions on hexes on jade. But if you look at the opinions of those who are actually informed and care, its a clear consensus. If your CR team can't identify which parts of the community best represent each segment of your audience, you have a problem. Here, I'll help: GWO - casual pve, riverside - more advanced pve, guru - HOH, tgh/iQ/QQ - gvg.

You had a choice between hearing the complaints in private and the praise in public once it was fixed OR having the praise in private and the complaints in public once you didn't hear what you needed to. Alpha. Need I say more?

Basically, your post ignores every single concern posted in the original thread, and blames the community again.

You have a community which is largely losing faith, angry, and so on. And all you've done is post and tell them it's their fault.

The suggestion that everyone is only interested in their own experience is insulting, as is the fact that it was you to post this and not Gaile herself. Many of the topics that are points of contest are part of a general consensus.

Anet is the only company I've ever met that tries to calm it's fans down by telling them it's their fault in the first place they're upset.

This policy of never admitting you're wrong is the reason HA is a complete and utter joke now, and I'm really disappointed that this is your response.

How ironic then that bots are thriving in so many places.

Haha this should be stickied for a while IMO.

No one can please everybody, it's a fact of life. ANet has tried harder than any developers I can think of though so I commend them on that. They also managed to create the only game to hold my interest longer than a month since I was about fouteen.

And I will agree that disrespect towards the CCs or anyone else is unnecessary but let me break it down for you Andrew. GW was launched with a lot of hype and promises, not unlike many other games, and you can usually tell soon after which ones are full of shit. GW wasn't one of those. It had some work to do regarding many aspects but the dev team seemed to be hard at work on them so it was all good and patience was all that was needed as a player.

That patience wore thin not long after realising the PvE campaign was basically a story mode with little to no replayability and PvP was a serious strain to be able to play the way you wanted or get friends introduced to the game at a level where they can play properly with you. Changes were slow and usually implemented in a manner that just seemed to defy logic at times. As the number of skills and professions piled up so did the number of skills that couldn't be used effectively in any serious build, and this coming from someone who loved to sit down and come up crazy bars all day. That in itself is not a major problem, but sludging around waste deep in a virtual environment of shit, praying for the next damn balance to address dead skills is a problem.

Then the team that was so forthcoming and honest just up and went two-faced. Outside all the community ranting, demands, and distasteful posts were people respectfully requesting information on issues critical to them. Information. That's it. Can we know the status on X? Is Y going to be addressed before the next campaign? You said you were working on Z 5 months ago, how's that going? And what response does ANet give? "Soon." "We're looking into it." "Devs are aware." "Blah Blah blah bs bs bs." All fluff no action for long periods of time. Then when action is taken, it makes you want to hate somebody. Just letting the community know what's going on like before could've had a seriously positive affect.

And during all of this Gaile is playing song and dance, dodging questions about issues close to heart, pissing over people's shoulders and calling it rain. I'm a straight-up person with at least average intelligence and just irritates me to no end when someone refuses to answer an important question directly or downplays a problem before even considering it.

It's not easy to have friends and guildies - the very people that make you look forward to logging in the game - submit to their frustrations and leave for good. I've left and come back to GW on three different occassions, having to rebuild my friendlist everytime. I can't be assed to do it a fourth time but I try to keep up with what's happening becasue I still think there's still some potential in the series at least, if not GW1, that Anet hasn't killed yet.

I'm glad you made this post now, when I no longer care as much about the game and as a result about anyone or any statements affiliated with ANet, because if this was months ago I'm sure I would have been embarassed (and banned) by my response.

Best wishes for GW2,
Taki

Alex, I must ask you something and I hope you can respond. See, your reasoning with half the people happy, making the change and the happy people get mad and start posting or whatever, well it applies to many situations but not all. Yes, this is a post about soul reaping and I hope you can read.

The overwhelmingly popular idea for soul reaping is to adjust it so that spirits and minions you do not control do not trigger soul reaping. Let us look at the 2 sides of the debate:

1. PvE players. PvE players want a soul reaping system that is consistent. They want every action to have a reaction. When the action is killing, and they should get energy from kills, they want the reaction, energy gain, to happen all the time, not just in short bursts.

2. PvP players. PvP players want balance. Short and simple, they want balance in their PvP games and that is all. Was soul reaping overpowered in PvP? Yes. Because of spirit spam, jagged bones abuse, etc. The ability to create something, then kill for soul reaping, was overpowered.

Those are the two largest populations of players by far and BOTH would be 100% satisfied with the change. Yes, some people support the nerf in it's current form, but consider this:

Soul Reaping was like that for 2 years and they NEVER complained about it. Soul Reaping in PvP would remain untouched essentially, as deaths don't happen that often. PvP players would like the change. In PvE, they would constantly get energy on deaths. PvE players would like the change. If soul reaping was turned into the above suggestion, the vast majority of players from the PvE community and probably entire PvP community would be supportive of it. This is clearly not a 50/50 split, unless you are going to make the claim that only 50% of the players play either PvE or PvP and the other 50% sit in town chatting all day

See, that soul reaping idea appeases the vast majority and makes the vast majority of the people happy. This is not a "If we implement this, people will raid the forums angrily". It is a very fair compromise and should definitely be implemented. But why isn't it? I think it is because Anet is failing to see the desires of both sides. PvP players want balance (check), PvE players want consistency (check). If a change will make so many people happy, and CAN be implemented (right now it is already halfway there), why should it not be implemented? Isn't making your community 99% happy a *GOOD* thing?

I eagerly await your apply, if you have the opportunity to make one.

Tiyuri, it is possible that Gaile is sick, or at a wedding, etc. His response may not be a meaningful act on her part.

I am not unequivocably defending ANet, but I have to say that us immediately blaming them -is- equal to them blaming us.

Thanks!
TabascoSauce

like the angry poster pots in this thread....
Thanks Andrew for at least a strait up post. Just be aware that the people who you referred to as demanding one out of millions are all going to post... Oh hi, they already started.
The reasonable people who could actually understand what you said and not hear 'It's all your fault you players' didn't need to hear it, but thanks anyways

Andrew, what you basically suggest is that there is a vast majority of players who don't post and who are satisfied with the game as it is... Than I have a few questions:

1. Why bother about making so much changes if 2.999.970 out of 3.000.000 players never complain?? Its obvious that making changes to the game upsets a lot of players. Why make such efforts if the vast majority never asks for changes at all?
2. What in fact IS the impact of posting suggestions/demands, whatever, on forums (by 10, 20, 100 players) when devs operate in the larger 3.000.000 playerbase window?

I'm quite sure its impossible to run a game by 'democracy'. Devs have their ideas and the right to provide the game according to those ideas. I think its important to make this clear to the player community. Yet the question remains: Why so much 'balancing' trouble when only a small part of the community asks for it? There will always be differend opinions and upset players...

MistressYichi, I understand your thoughts, and I do see what you are suggesting. You say, "While it is not your job to hold our hand and inform us everytime your team decided to pick up a pencil and write down an idea, it IS your job however to inform us about the status and development of said ideas that are knowingly going to be inplimented into the game," but allow me to comment:

We are the messengers, but we do not create the messages. We cannot provide more information than we are given, and we cannot say more than we are permitted to say. It's not for lack of trying – I ask often "Can I tell players this information?" But the answer may range from "Sure" to "No" (which is not common) to "It's premature to talk about it because we are not sure if or when [this change] [that balance update] [those features] will be implemented."

We've found over time that saying "We are definitely working on that feature," can come back to bite us when the feature takes longer than the players think that it should. (Or, sometimes longer than we said it would. ) A case in point, if you were around long last year, was reconnects. Reconnects was on the boards before release. We made it clear we were planning it, and that we acknowledged that it would be a very vital part of the game. But by talking about it, it became a focus, and players began the "You promised…" comments. Another example is the PvE-only skills, which as you just saw in the Update Notes included more than Sunspear skills after all. They were promised, but the time that they took caused distress, and they became a focal point for frustration. Maybe—and I imagine this won't be a popular idea—we give too much information. What if we'd worked on those without mentioning it—like we did the storage update—and surprised everyone? It's an interesting idea, don't you think?

Your example of the ATS updates is a good one, because both things happened. We talked about it coming, but we also had to delay it. We definitely shouldn't have talked about that until later, and we should have given more information—and a more accurate timeline—whenever one became available. I think that it would have been better to say "We're going to delay this three months" instead of "We're delaying a few weeks" several times. (But in fact the "few weeks" was more accurate, because we really didn’t know that it would take as long as it did.) Anyway, I agree we didn't provide very good information or give a very accurate timeline, and I'll be sure to keep that particular incident in mind and share it in the future, because we can use that as an example of deciding how and when to give information.

The designers decide what changes will be made, when they will be made, and when they can be talked about. We (CT members) can make sure the designers are kept up to date on player concerns, can check back for more information later, and most of all can look forward to being able to provide more info or to give a firm release timeline when it's given to us, and when we're given clearance to share it.

Nytestalker: I understand what you're asking, as well, but posting takes time—more time than reading and assessing posts. Designers could spend time responding to forum posts while they develop the game, it's true. But doing one really does come at a cost to the other. And to which post, of thousands, should the designer respond in a "once a week" situation? And how to not offend the other posters who don't get a response?

Constructive comments welcome!

After reading some of the replies so far, I honestly wish the moderators would sticky it, delete everything after Andrew's post, and lock it. I don't think many are actually reading what he wrote or else they are just choosing to ignore it and continue their previous path of ranting and demanding but in a newer location.

I can comprehend what you are saying Andrew and Gaile..but still despite everything you guys are saying (and it is valid), i still don't understand why it took 2months+ or so for the next skill update, just so we can see all the terrible skills (80% of gw total skills available) not get improved, while the broken skills and builds remain.

Mr. Patrick has made some very good points. The community response is just as valid.

One thing I will say is this: Anet actually 'cares'. Believe it or not, they really do care. Passionately in fact. How do I know this? No other company would give this much attention to the community. None, and tragically I've seen this far too many times. It's the 'done thing'.

Why do most companies not bother? It is impossible to satisfy any community. No matter how discerning, how articulate or intelligent, the desires of the masses cannot be fulfilled. It's understandable modus operandi. The guys over at Arena Net know this. Most of them over there are very experienced so it's a safe assumption.
To a certain extent they knew this would happen. However I imagine they saw a happy medium somewhere in this inevitable minefield and decided it was worth taking all the flak for. I have never seen this in the industry. Ever.
They truly do care. It's almost suicidal from a business perspective but there you have it.

I think it was worth it personally. They have achieved a lot with this approach. Much of the reason I hang around here is to see how this environment they have created (one of relative openness) develops. I have witnessed an unprecedented degree of emotional attachment. That's something you really can't buy in this industry (well, EA might be able to but...) .

The community needs to remember that it can be a hell of a lot darker out there, and all you will get from most other companies is an icy reception (Hopefully Guild Wars has gone some way to change this cold, calculating out-look. Time will tell).

The guys at Arena Net need to also remember that for sure, you will never please us. It's a natural outcome. People always want more than you can give. Then theres always Sod's Law to contend with.

Again I personally believe you achieved a great deal with this approach. Whether or not it satisfied your own initial goals. Most of the community know this also. The energies they expend daily is evidence enough. It's not like everyone who posts here frequently is young, so it can't be attributed to age alone. That should be more than enough to convince you.

Post's like this are understandable every now and then, but don't ever for a minute allows yourselves to believe you'll ever be completely rid this kind of energy. It goes with the territory and you will be living with it for the rest of the Guild Wars series. At least you will do as long as it remains a success...

Keep up the good work.