Guild Wars - Terrible Customer Relations?

Welcome to customer service.

I notice that people who have waiter'd give better tips than those who have not.

But those who have waiter'd also more plainly recognize bad/slow service and can separate it from bad cooking. Caveat emptor.

Thanks!
TabascoSauce

To the OP: I believe you are wrong about the community being divided into PvE and PvP. There is in fact a much greater divide: A-net lovers, and A-net haters. It's clearly evidenced in this thread, the A-net lovers will disagree with you no matter what you say if it's bashing A-net. While the A-net Haters will agree with you as long as it's bashing A-net. The fact of the matter is you can't really have a discussion because people will not agree with the people on the other side of the "divide".

As for me I think they're getting some things right with this update (recall mostly) and some things wrong. The problem most people have is that they're not doing enough "Right" things (fixes).

People have suggested not making their shouts affect other paragons, that would destroy them in groups but open the way for some major buffs if there was only one in the team. (makes sense anyway being "leaders" after all)

This is a difficult topic. I'm not really sure whether to allow this to continue, I don't want to be seen as endorsing such a view. I do think it's important for a community to be frank, to point out flaws, to point out grievances and air their concerns and problems. This extends to game bugs, updates, developers, or community relations. The problem is where the line is drawn.

To get into a "quote" war by simply taking out snipets of conversation that can be taken out of context is not the way to express concerns. There's some conjecture and speculation filtered in with opinion and some agressive facts.

The question is, does this deserve a space to be debated and discussed? The problem with these types of threads, where people believe they are being honest, is that they deteriorate rapidly into flaming, name-calling, bashing and insults. The fact that this was posted on another fansite and it turned out this way with an eventual close more then supports this fact. I'm not sure what to recommend or advise. If you have serious concerns do you send them to NCSoft support? Do you try to email someone? Do you post them on a fansite forum? And how do you seperate opinion and heresay from legitimate concerns?

I know that I receive complaints in my PM box and email both about myself and our moderators. I address those concerns, I speak with people and try to clarify/explain/answer them. I know Gaile Gray's passion for this community is the same. That yes, she does see the concerns but can't possibly see every suggestion, every complaint, every comment. When I go through an extensive thread with essay-like posts (soul reaping comes to mind) no I do not read every line of the post. I skim, see key points, because hey... there are thousands of posts every day on this forum. There are thousands of posts every day across the forums. Even when an idea is suggested multiple times you can miss it. You can't pin someone down because their filter has to be broader then yours. I see the main concerns of the community, they can be extensive and with the knowledge that any change you make there will be unhappy customers.

I can change the color of this site and see threats from people that they "will never visit again" over something so arbitrary. Filtering out the noise to get to the root of complaints has been a struggle for all MMOG's. It's a struggle for forum owners who have to balance and weigh each thread and post trying to decide if it's contributing, if it has weight against possible lashback from the developers or another angle of the community.

So I sit here wondering what I should do. It will take a lot of convincing, a lot of maturity on this communities part to make sure that this thread does not turn into a back-and-forth IRC conversation, flaming, or outright attack that will force me to DELETE this thread. There will be no closing here. If I feel you step over the line your post will be deleted. And please save the anti-anet arguements or the fan boy arguement for your friends. One-liners that I feel do not contribute will be deleted. Any personal insult to anyone will be deleted.

We'll see what happens.

I feel this post was made with the wrong intentions..however it is worded in the OP. If you take the time to read thru the post on GWO that this is referring to you will see that The OP was banned for good reason and with ample warnings to stop. All he/she is trying to do here is start the same kind of war that they have going on over there. The OP has gone out of the way to cast ANET and Gaile in a negative manner but fails to quote his/her malicious posts in reguards to them.

I am not saying that the OP is wrong on everything but i do believe he/she is going about this the wrong way. Obviously the OP has a problem with Gaile Grey.. I suggest the mods have them take it to PM like they would with any other disagreement between forum users.

I don't see the reason why do you want to suppress and censor polite on-topic discussion. This is wrong approach and fan sites shouldn't do things like that, or they can , and will loose their credibility.

There is certainly problem with community - Anet relations. PVP state of the game, mass exodus of players to other games, and general feeling of being ignored are everywhere.

From shrinking number of guilds participating in GVG, to small number of districts in Heroes Ascent and Team Arenas - the signs are obvious, the game is dying and declining fast. The main cause of this are failed development ideas, lack of proper skill balance and ignoring the voice of community. There are dozens of great threads in Gladiator's Arena part of Guru, which address those issues in mature, polite manner, offering good solutions for existing problems ( I will just point Ensign's stellar skill update wishlist ). I do believe that Anet developers want their game to be perfect on all fronts, be it PVP or PVE wise. Sadly, I feel that they aren't getting any PVP player feedback, our suggestions, petitions, proposals are all being ignored .

I blame lack of proper information trading between the real force that shapes the game ( developers ), and good source of feedback, and paying customers ( experienced PVP players ).

If the situation won't change, I'm giving Guild Wars PVP 6 months tops, before total decline. We won't get back to the awesome times of past championships, but at least we can keep some of those who still are playing.

So please, listen to us. Listen to your own community, listen to your loyal, paying customers.

As far as A-Net Customer service goes my own personal experience has been:

Support is responsive, answers questions quickly, and does an excellent job of taking care of the customer.
The Dev Team and Community Relations have been good about passing information to the customers.
The Dev Team and Community Relations have listened to suggestions and responded to ideas from the community, even when that response has been, "No" or, "Not at this time."

It seems that your main complaint is not that Gaile is doing a poor job in giving information to the community, but that information given by the community onto the formus is not being passed into the proper hands. It may be that you have a valid complaint, but then again, maybe not. From statements that I've seen Gaile has said that she and other members of the dev team read the forums on a daily basis. If Izzy is not aware of what is being said on the forums it may well be that Izzy is shirking the responsibility of reading them for himself. Or not. I don't know how tasks are divided at A-Net. Neither do you. This is definitely a "Gaile is not doing her job." type post and the truth of the matter is that none of us know if that is true or not true. It could very easily be that Izzy is not doing his job.

Or it could be that both Izzy and Gaile (and the rest of the company as well) are very hard at work at their jobs and you are simply wrong about anyone shirking. The Meta is constantly evolving and that is a good thing. But people who build and use gimmicky (or creative, depending on the personal perspective of the user) builds will always find something to base a gimmick on, and evolution will occur, and that's a good thing. No, it's no fun to be against a team of Paragons who chuck spears forever and simply don't die, but that doesn't translate to Gaile sucks -- at least not in my mind.

Aye

*sigh* Yes, you know me so well dont you... *shakes head* Ill do your trick and change the quote to relfect what you should have said..

Yep.
If i then think it could be done better, i discuss it here constructively with all you other GW fans, see what the informed public opinion is and then either post a suggestion here or send a PM to Gail. That is effective.
Inciting this sort of personal attack is not effective, in fact it is detrimental to the relationship between players and staff. How can some of you not see this...?

(and no need to 'criticise' my spelling on this side of the pond either ;P)

I'm tired, so perhaps my sense of humor threw things off. The point was that they have listened to people, and do it on a regular basis;hence the reference to the official suggestions thread. An amazing amount of stuff has been added to the game at our behest.
And the other point was that you are still focusing on one aspect of the game. If you are indeed speaking for the entire PvP community, then what about Pve? I understand the reasons for most skill changes stemming from PvP, but that doesn't mean it's voice should be ignored.
I cannot say I'm in the loop as much as I used to be in the game, as my life has changed course in the past few months, but others in this thread have noted certain things. Not the least of which being that right now Anet is busy getting ready to provide 2 new services to its customers: GW:EN and GW2. They're attention is divided, and something you see as direly important with the need for an immediate fix may only seem to ANet as something they can take care of with a more careful deliberate fix.
I wouldn't know. Neither can you. We can simply sit here and guess.

But that's just my two cents

I think Gaile's done a good job as a CR rep for PvE. Unfortunately for us PvP'ers our concerns do not seem to be making it through to the devs. IMO this game has been broken and dead for a long time now and Anet simply does not have the resources or willpower to fix it. It just so happens to be one of the best games in the market right now which will actually run on my PC, which is why I still keep playing (that and a sense of nostalgia I suppose). I would agree that better representation is needed for the PvP community if things are going to change for the better.

However, seeing that the focus for the devs is GWEN and GW2 I won't be holding my breath.

I don't think it's a semantics issue. Lyra brought up a good point. Gaile said there are several people reading the forums so trying to peg her as the sole communicator of community opinion is, well, inaccurate.

While the idea that the ANET team may not be getting the correct community information is disturbing, there are problems with several things you've said here.

If Gaile has only PvE knowledge, why are most of the changes relative to PvP? Their PvE effect is usually to make the game harder. Max +25 stacking armor? please tell me how the PvE portion of the game warranted this.

Your post sounds all "epic" and all, but it ignores the basic tenant that what the community proposes doesn't necessarily make a balanced game.
Maybe it's just a difference in philosophy, but I don't see why ANET should just do what we want. (please don't give me the "that's how they make money" crap. It's obvious that the people ranting could care less if ANET makes money. If that's all they wanted we'd all have every piece of armor, 20 skills at a time, be level 40, flying on mounts, jumping, have +12 Mana regen & be rich ) That's how crappy musicians like Brittaney came about. They walk a line between, what we like, what they like & the best understanding of what balance is based on their data & research (Which, btw, is much more extensive than ours)

All that being said, if the conversation you posted is true, there does need to be much better communication to people like Izzy about what's going on.

I would like to hear more reasons as to why they make the changes, but I honestly think people will ever accept anything but what they want, weather it makes sense or even applies to a majority of players. The people on the forum do not represent everyone, and regardless of how much we hate or love a specific thing in the game, ANET's data on how ALL the players play may show the opposite of what we say here.

Easy fix for their divided attention. Lock down Guildwars. Find a tipping point where balance is reasonably hit and just lock the game. I'd rather have a static environment than one constantly in flux tipping wildly in both directions.

I have to tell you Tiyuri, I agree with almost everything you said.

Coming from CoH/CoV, another NCSoft title, they handled Community Relations much better for a couple of reasons:

1. They had their own set of Forums, that they maintained...so there was really only one place to go, and one place the Devs Answered.

2. They had 1-3 dedicated CR people. I think they settled on two, but there was always at least one person that trolled their forums, answered questions and relayed information.

3. The Devs trolled the forums, posted, and actually participated in discussions.

Now most of those things worked so well, because they only had one place to go...Fan sites still existed, but for the most part, all Dev Communication happened at the official forum site.

You could also tell when things were being communicated because the CR would say I'll bring that to a dev, and then either a Dev or the CR would respond with an answer.

Was their system 100%? No. Was it better than what GW has? Absolutely.

Overall I think Gaile try's, and in all fairness she does more than some other MMOs do, but the PvP arena is truly lacking...

I know someone said that with the launch of GW:EN and GW2 they don't have time to add another person for PvP...my answer...Yes they do...add someone from the community that already has the knowledge...how many people already writing articles would love to step up into that job. My guess, most of them.

Anyway...just my thoughts...feel free to doubt me or flame me.

Let me put it this way. A-net is a very different brand of a game developer. So far of recent years, every developer has become more and more arrogant to their player base. I could start listing them all, and Blizzard would be at the top of the list. However in A-nets case it’s always been a lack of communication that has set up these bad updates/ good updates. It is not the communities responsibility to constantly yell out that “GW is broken” or there of.

I have said it once and I will say it again, the community does of a somewhat moderate control over GW. I think if we did gave the whole idea; of fixing GW to the community there would be utter chaos. Many different aspects that go into these updates have been that of, “the community whining and crying for a change(s).” Soul Reaping is a perfect example of this, and how many people whined about it. There were so many threads that came before the so called “SR nerf,” that said it was "way too powerful." I am sorry, but it’s both the PvP and the PvE parts of the community that controls the state of the game (it is not one sided). All of you PvP’ers who complained that PvP was not being represented enough in Prophecies, that was the reason we got Factions. Then it was the PvE’ers that complained about the PvE in Factions, and so we got Nightfall.

Falling on the PR relation (that’s exactly what they are), it is absolutely lackluster. Here is the problem: we know about what will go in an update, but we only know half of the story. Yes A-net provides us with commentary every now and again, about why they “fix” something. However it only goes so far; not many people have great insight into what A-net is doing, but the PR people have to act “coy with the community.” For instance the Inquirer leak of GW 2 and EotN, most (if not all) was true in summarized of what was going to happen to GW. However we were led to believe that it was a small portion if it being right (most of it was wrong), so we must buy PC Gamer magazine to get the full story. Only to find out the leak was about 90% right about GW 2 and EotN.

I have to ask why it is only a few people from A-net that actually takes their time to talk to the community. As bad as Lionhead Studios can be, it’s the usually the whole development team pitching in. I would love too see Jeff Strain post something on the community boards. At times I think he is only getting half of the information from his PR people; so he quotes something that is half right and half wrong. So if Peter Molyneux from Lionhead Studios and Sid Meier from Firaxis Games can talk to their community why can’t Jeff Strain.

Once the communication factor is fixed this whole thread would be irrelevant.

BTW this thread will not end well.

That is the one thing that i wondered... when i bought GW i straight away looked for their forum...but there isnt one :s (so i found guru heh) I agree that 1 offical forum would be good. However, given how some people post here, i can imagine many forum bans taking place, which would then leave people annoyed even if they deserved the forum ban :P
I dont know the official reason why they dont have one..does anyone? I guess it would be a lot of potential hassell, when they can rego at fan sites without having to actually manage them.

Sounds pretty good. I only have knowledge about my friend's experience with WoW & AO. WoW seemed as bad or worse than GW(and they have thier own forums), and AO sounded much worse. Compared to WoW, the GW nerfs sounded tame. AO, just sounded like they didn't care and said so.

I have to agree with this. I don't know if i have EVER seen an actual Dev post. I know we get alot of quotes etc from Devs but i think that comes paraphrased thru the CR team. I also think that ANET should run an Official Forums as that would elimate alot of the double posting on many of the Fan sites. You can go to this site and then jump to GWO and see pretty much the same posts and same replies to those same posts.

I think unloading all this on Gaile is unfair. She’s the face we see everyday that represents Anet. That’s what makes her a target. She’s not a developer and she’s not the one who decides what gets nerfed, buffed and so on. The developers are the ones who decide what needs to be tweaked. It’s Gaile’s unfortunate position to try to put a positive spin on it so she gets attacked for it. Frankly, you couldn’t pay me enough to do her job. It sucks. Blaming one person for all of GW’s woes isn’t going to solve anything.

First, good post, and quite a conundrum.

For your answer, look no further than the link below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_criticism

I'd go one step further; posts like this should not only be constructive, but they should also be informed.

I still want to hear these rabid Gaile's fanclub members comment on this:

(Regarding the Inquirer's spill of PCGamer's Exclusive Information on GWEN and GW2)

Didn't she basically LIE? Everything on the Inquirer is totally CORRECT, words by words, when compared with PCGamer's info. What's the deal here?

And just so you know, that was the time when I lost my faith in Anet, and Gaile in particular.

If she didn't realize that she was going to bare the brunt of the attacks from a rabid fan base...she probably shouldn't have taken the job. The Original CR from CoH (CuppaJo FTW) knew it would be part of the job, took the job, and because she was honest, and didn't lose her cool in public turned into probably one of the greatest CRs I have ever seen. It's part of the job...learn to deal, or put in for a transfer.

I worked as a CR, hated it, and I'll never go back.

I remember Gaile writing in another post that the devs also read the forums, so Im sure that Gaile is not the only way that they have of finding out how the players feel. I guess that the latest nerf wish of the PVP crowd is to have curses nerfed into obliteration. Maybe the devs won't to it because they are finally figuring out that if they nerf everything that PVPrs want nerfed that there will be no more PVE and only monks, eles, and warriors running around in the PVP arenas.

yeah I worked in customer support as well, and if I ever tried to pull any of the crap Gaile goes on with, I would have been canned in a heartbeat...

I think Gaile is just doing her job. Not knowing much about PvP? Well she does not know much about PvE either. My observation is that she is looking to the game through pink collored glasses: everything needs to be cute and cozy...

But she DOES read the forums and I'm convinced she DOES pass on the information to the dev's. I can't judge if this happens selectively or not. I don't know how much information actually reaches the devs, and how they react. But if its for making adjustments to the game I'm quite sure the dev's are working according to their own ideas, based on their own set of game rules, and that Gaile has no influence on that...

Have I been happy with all changes? No
Have I felt that I have been lied to? No

From reading here, and seeing others frustration with changes, I can say that there are things that need to be changed. However, not all things need to be as they were.

One thing I strongly feel:
The GW Info/content(new, changed) supply and demand is out of balance here.
The supply of info is lacking in relation to the demand of the players.

HOWEVER-

The demand of the players right now is teetering out of control. Even if it were supplied by Anet, Gail, or anyone, it wouldn't be enough ( and people will complain) or it wouldn't say what the players want to hear (ergo..more complaining).
Its Friday. Update will most likely be out today.
What do I and you expect to hear once people see what has been changed?
This thread says alot.

She barely has time to play. How many fan forums are there?

Guru? GWO? Gamefaqs? IGN? 1UP? I know theres quite a few more big ones...

Try to condense everything everyone says per day on fan forums into a report someone can read in less than half our.

i reiterate my previous post. the job is bullshit translator.

How do you know something really matters, or a select few are just REALLY vocal?

I hate to say it, but... yup, I had the same feelings. In fact, people in these forums SAVAGELY attacked the author of the Inquirer article, saying the facts were wrong (they weren't) or that the screen shot was faked (it wasn't).

I don't remember Gaile or the moderators defending the Inquirer writer from such personal attacks.

Yes, that was when I lost much of my faith in GW and Gaile.

At times, Gaile seems more like a politician than anything else; she cherry-picks the questions she answers without responding to difficult (and polite)
questions. Make a rude comment about throwing away mini-pets, and Gaile is right there with an answer; ask a serious question about a game mechanic, and she often graces us with stoney silence.

I *like* Gaile. I *admire* how well she handles a tough job.

But I'm also not blind to the flaws in her approach to the community, which at times are (to be polite) disingenuous.

This is exactly the kind of post the OP was talking about.

In essence, your post is a contradiction of the bolded statement. What do you think you are doing in this post?

Anyway, the OP's post is by far the best representation of the "problems" with Anet's customer service. I very much like the idea of having seperate PvE and PvP CR's.

I think that posts like these - ones with organized, solid arguments, are what will get the players what they want. If someone is making a valid argument with plenty of evidence to prove it, why wouldn't Anet listen?

A year ago I would have given Anet's CR team a 2 thumb's up, but as of late the communication between them and the community is seriously lacking.

It is to bad that Gaile is taking the brunt of this but that is afterall part of her job. One thing you need to be as a PR/CR person is thick skinned, if you are not, you are in the wrong profession.

Tiyuri said most of what I feel pretty well, but to elaborate on my thoughts...

I do feel there needs to be an additional CR person or two. I'm not truly confident in Gaile being able to convey all our concerns by herself, nor being able to reply to us about the dev team's intentions alone. She tries, and thanks for that, but still. I'm aware that dev team members supposedly read the forums as well, but I still feel the need for more CR.

I'd feel a lot better if there was a competent CR who actually played the PvP portion of the game often, so they could more effectively relay prominent concerns to the dev team, using their own experience as well as that of the community. Perhaps add one more for PvE as well, if that was desired.

Gaile is simply the unlucky recipient of months of seething anger, confusion, and exhasperation on the community at large. I've found that people are more inclined to complain rather than compliment, to be cross rather than happy when it comes to games of all types. When I go to my various Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh forums is see more posts about what Upper Deck/Konami/Shueisha(Yu-Gi-Oh's problem lies in too many fingers in one pie) and Wizards of The Coast(WoTC seems to like produce inconsistent product) is doing wrong. WoTC is smart enough not to send employees onto any forums to explain their actions but Upper Deck does. No matter how many times the designers explain themselves people just aren't satisfied. I think the people here are getting the wrong idea about Gaile. She doesn't have the power to fix everything thats wrong. Its not her job to kow-tow to our wishes and take repeated verbal abuse. All she can do is document our complaints and take them back to the design team. In fact, the more we abuse her the more apathetic she's likely to get towards our concerns.

Gaile put aside, it is obvious that there is something missing in the Dev to Community relation. Especially in the PvP section of the game, like you said. Either they seem to be missing alot, or they're just incredibly stubborn. Their updates don't really change what the PvP community wants them to change. Maybe they just don't know about it. Or, Perhaps, the Devs have their own (valid) reasons for not nerfing hexes, changing paragons, removing killcount, etc. If that is the case, please share them with the community, so we don't have to guess about it.
If your quotes are true, then Gaile Gray indeed does not know alot about PvP. Perhaps another CR aimed at PvP can fix things.

The fact that this forced me beyond the trade forums speaks of how important this really is. I also won't spend much time either.

Somehow people in the community, be individuals or small groups, got it in their head they could heavily influence Anet. To an extent just about everyone has had expectations or desired changes in the game. A few people overreacted when Anet did a skill update that in many books was fairly conservative.

I'll cut it off quick. The world, Anet, doesn't revolve around around the individual. Nor does it revolve around a small group of people. The community in a sense revolves around Anet and our influences are small.

Trust me when I say there was more than a couple posts removed, and not just in those final hours when it all blew up.


If this thread goes the same route... well so be it. To oblivion it goes.

Just posting my two bits while we're on this subject. I'm not as eager to get riled and angry at the changes as others, but even when I am tarting and cheesed I don't dump it on Gaile Grey. She's one against the mob, from the sounds of it.

You can't tell me that she doesn't have days where she gets so frazzled that she's tail over teacup. She can only tell you what she's told.

The game can't cater to every single idea or demand that spills out on the forums. What they can do is compromise and learn from it. (I hope!)

Even so... I've heard on more than one occassion that "once there's a change, ANet NEVER goes back on it". That kind of makes me nervous. Does that mean if they make a change that's for the worse that instead of removing it to the way it was they'll just kruft it with plaster and duct tape? It makes me feel pretty uncomfortable if that's the truth of the matter.

I'm so confused now. At this point it seems as though they've painted themselves into a corner.

I don't know where the problem lies... could be gaile's job description, the devs, who knows. And really we can't figure it out ourselves. But I agree there IS a problem. Sometimes it feels like we might as well be talking to a brick wall about our concerns. It also seems wrong that an update designed to help balance pvp manages to make changes that both PvPers and PvEers don't like.

Are we being overly demanding, so anet chooses to ignore us? I think not. The main focus of the complaints have been changes to the existing game. We're not asking for them to implement a huge number of crazy things (there is some of that, but it's not what has people so riled up). It's that they keep making changes to the game that are very unpopular, and we want it reversed. I don't think that reacting to a change that makes a fun game boring is unreasonable. And recently they have been making a lot of these changes (soul reaping, loot scaling, armor buff). So what else can they expect?

But no matter how much we complain, it seems our complaints fall on deaf ears. Sometimes they try to offer compromise solutions (soul reaping, HA, loot scaling exceptions) but these solutions are only a bandaid on the deep gash caused by anet's changes to a good game. Three million copies sold? Obviously people like the game. So why must they change it in such unpopular ways when there are alternative, and better, solutions suggested by the community?

The problem is anet's philosophy seems to be "if it ain't broke, keep trying to improve it even if you break it in the attempt".

Perhaps having a CR person was a mistake in the first place. It gives players hope that they will be listened to, that the devs might implement their good ideas. But if Gaile's job is actually more of a PR job, then this hope is false. And so the players get frustrated because they think Gaile is failing at her job, and take their anger out on her.

I am a PvPer and a long time ANet fan. Things have been pretty frustrating of late, but I would like to direct you all to some thoughts I had about this a couple months ago: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10135994

In this article I mention about how Guild Wars is a type of proof of concept test for a new game model. As such, I really don't think they have the backing and resources that you might expect for a much more mature and developed game, such as WoW. Even so, the game has done remarkably well - but there have been a lot of things that could have been done better. Somethings get addressed, some things seem to be ignored. All of it seems to take some time. Why do you suppose this is?

Guild Wars was 5 years in development. Since GW2 is slated to be released in 2010, it should be around 2+ years in development now. My guess is that Izzy and a lot of other resources have started turning their attention not only to GW:EN but also GW2. This is one reason why we probably see other devs like Morello doing more of the skill balancing work. This is also probably why things are really slow to get done now. The devs are busy working on GW:EN, they are busy working on GW2, and they have GW to work on as well. All of that and you don't see a lot of additions to the list of people working at ANet posted on their site.

My take on things is that GW is not going to change a whole lot as more and more resources get shifted to GW2. GW:EN will be a nice diversion, but probably not a major overhaul. Guild Wars is not the end all and be all of the franchise. Probably GW2 is not either. Just like WoW took multiple iterations to get to where it is now, GW will as well. The difference though is that the starting point for GW, where we are at now, is so much better than that of a lot of other games.

So I think it's important to consider the context in which the game and its developments exists. ANet has finite resources that are getting stretched in order to push the franchise forward. Even though additional revenue is not coming from GW now, they are still doing their best to support it. Like you all I have committed a lot to GW with all campaigns on several accounts. Even so, I still would prefer they do a bang-up job on GW2 and get it ready as soon as possible rather than address every little thing in GW immediately.

Anyway, to get this to the topic at hand, there are a lot of things going on that Gaile probably cannot talk about for a variety of reasons. We as players tend to be very nearsighted, while the company is going to typically have a much longer range view - a view though that cannot be shared. Given these opposing forces, I think that Gaile does the best she can given the constraints. She cannot talk about things until given the okay by the developers, and because of past experiences the devs are becoming ever reluctant to release information until they are absolutley sure things are done and will be in place.

Finally I pose this question:

Would everyone be happier if Guild Wars was released and nothing afterwards was balanced or changed? Basically if there was no dev response other than bug fixing and server maintenance? I spend a lot of more money on other software packages that don't get the kind of attention that GW has gotten over the past two years. Instead I just have to buy the next version when it comes out every one to two years.

Im going to make this as long as possible (For me anways..)

1. Many people are taking a vacation from the game tell EOTN comes out. Thus the more angry people gain a bigger voice since the rest have left.

2. We are all bored. Hard mode was okay but for me, I want REAL quests in PVE and not some FEDEX crap. PVP is all about the high end stuff including HA/GVG. For me TA/RA has always been boring. I seriously cant imagine staying in random arenas for more then half an hour. However lately people have been complaining about HA and GVG and i too think it needs an update. What that update is? I dont know and i dont think the community does either. Its due to this conundrum that I believe Anet doesnt know which side to take. Let's leave that at that.

3. Us all attacking gaile wont help one bit. Though i think she is doing a good job i think the suggestion of a PVP rep was brilliant.

4. There was a list earlier in this thread about Paragons being weak alone and over powered else where. Though i like Guild War's interconnectivity between the two games i seriously think we need a physical division between the two gametypes. I'm not suggesting two different skillsets but something must be done here.

5. Wheres my pony?

Nicely put, and pretty much how I see things as well. Trying hard not to descend into arguments and flamebaiting, I work in a public-facing job, and if a customer ever spoke to me or a colleague in the same way that many of the posts directed at Anet and personally at Gaile are written, I would be within my rights to inform them, politely, calmly, but firmly, that we are here to help them in every way we can, but NOT to be the target of their abuse, and to refuse to deal with them until they could speak to me in a civil manner, knowing that my line manager would back me up in that, if necessary. If someone has a valid concern about the game, fine, but if they cannot put that concern across in a civilised manner, tbh I don't believe they have the right to expect any sort of response.

ZOMG! I wanted a PURPLE pony! What did Anet give me? A pink one with polka dots! /ragequit.

On a more serious note:

/signed for a PvP rep, though it certainly won't decrease Anet's development cycle, so people can't expect any quicker turnaround for enhancements / bug fixes.

Also, I disagree about the bored part. Guild Wars stopped being about PvP or PvE for me quite some time ago. Now it's about:

1) The fun of joining PUG's in HM for Tombs and seeing how well / poorly people play.

2) Forming an all-mesmer (plus one monk and MM) group for Sorrow's Furnace, not coordinating any skills, and just running out and seeing how far we could get. We almost completed Oro, and quicker than any BP could have.

3) Doing silly things with the friends I've met over the past two years

4) Helping others out rather then trying to get richer and more L337.

5) Making the most out of Anet balances and nerfs; trying to be the first person to come out with that new build which works well after the updates.

6) And more stuff that I can't think of right now.

Gaile is doing her job well. Community is not being ignored - Anet just does not have sufficient resources to balance the game properly due to GW:EN and GW2 development.

Please explain.