Should ArenaNet try to improve the GW community?

In Edge #180, they have an interview with Jeff Strain. It's a fairly interesting one. One thing that caught my head was this question;






What exactly does Jeff mean by this? Is any of the "strengths" something that is in Guild Wars?

I mean - As a player who have followed the game since 03, I often recall all the discussions about how Instanced gameplay destroys the community.
And now, 2 years after launch, what we have is a lot of people in different camps having different people about it. It's quite uniqe I think. For both good and bad.

On one hand we got a camp of people who are nostalgic about the beta and the early days of GW, which they refer to, as the "good life". Some people in this camp also hate the PvP system now, for whatever reason.

Then you got another camp who always hated the community. These are the peoples who disliked Henchmen and hated heroes, and how the community was.


Then you also have a third camp who hates online community. The people who look down on people who choose to play in Guilds, in social events, in pugs, chatting and being social with other players.


I was thinking about how we could improve the community. I was inspired by the threads about veterans helping out new players in the game.
Because we can all agree that GWs deeper layers(particiularly in PvP) is hardcore-not-accesable.

GW has always been a place where people could say what they want. Some people though feel that there has become alot more whiners, haters, griefers, trollers, dupers, hackers, farmers, cheaters, and other negative "...ers"!


Back then before release I remember the posts about the comparrisons with Diablo 2. The argument was that Battle.net had a horrible community with a mean bunch of people, who seemed to play the game, even though they had little love for the community, and even the game and the developers.
Some people said that GW would be the same. That it was the price of free play.

Personal - I don't think it has anything to do with that(based on my time in WoW.)! Its wrong to stereotype 9 million people across 3-4 continents and across over 500 some servers, however, I dont think pay to play, makes a community better.


Despite some of the problems and hatred within WoW, it's surprising to see Blizzards fanbase.

Blizzards official website, lets fans host their own blizzard fanart from all their games. A great idea I love personally. Should Anet and GW focus on this too?

Another thing Is that their developers(alongside their community managers) also post and discuss the game with public.
Its interesting to me, why Jeff Strain, Mike Obrian and all the other guys never come on GWguru or some other GW fansite and just post a bit and hang out with the players. What is the price for taking 30 seconds to just post "very cool" to some guide a GWfan made in the community works forum, or something?
Does this not show lack of interest in their game?

Some say that Gailie Gray is less active than she used to be because of all the rude comments and people who almost harassed her everywhere. It sometimes seem like the community actually shot the messenger if the community had angry issues with some design choice(s)!?

So is that our own fault? As a community?



How can it be that a game like WoW gets so many many videos posted on something like warcraftmovies.com, even though with GWs much more competitive pvp system, that people dont make movies and use the game as a tool of expression - Plenty of people seem to love it and want to tell others about how great it is.
But is GW just not attracting people who wanna do stuff like online movies?

Sure you can find videos of GW on youtube, but to be fair, a good bunch of does are just music videos with someone playing GW to a Fall out boy song or something!



Could it be that GW has not allowed the people to alter or do enough in the world, when all was said and done?

I once played a crappy MMO which had an awesome community for, two years! Two years worth of crap was forgotten because I played with awesome people. It really should not be forgotten.

A lot of new games that are coming up, have focused on sandbox gameplay and giving the tools to the players, so they themselfs get their creative freak gene on, and go rampage!


But as a community.. Or as a person, as a part of a community, what can you do? Honestly - if someone really wanted to make an effort towards improving the game, how would it be?

I have heard about a vampire game that runs on the source engine. it was developed by Troika who then closed its doors. but the community after years are still releasing unofficial patches to fix the game. its amazing.
I heard about a few select planetside players who created special promotion trailers for the game, which was said to have increased sales 1100% or something!


I for one am sick of the negativity. It has been 2 years of this. If anything... If anything, fanboys or haters alike, haven't we all learned now, that going down the I'll-cry-and-threathen-anet-about-leaving-the-game-and-saying-dooms-day-prophercies-if-they-dont-do-what-i-think-is-right!?

It makes me grinny. Because in some ways the GW community is amazing. its the most hardcore group of pvpers I personally have ever seen. and when it comes to create uniqe strategies and builds its some of the most creative and interesting work I have ever seen. Which is probably also thanks to the amount of skills in the game!?


Is social problems in this game, the fault of Anet or the community?

ANet can't do anything to make people nicer or more social. The players themselves have to want to change. Personally, I'm saddened by the amount of cynicism and negativity in the GW community but I'm just one person. If I said this while in LA, Kaineng, or Kamadan maybe one person would agree with me and the rest would tell me to quit QQ and spend an hour trolling me.

Haha. The disparity between the length of the OP's remarks and the terseness of the reply pretty much sums the whole thing up.

Communities in MMOs always deteriorate with age, due to the lack of newness that eventually settles in. Players get frustrated, jaded, set in their ways and/or simply settle into playing with closer friends and guild members. The end result is always seen on the various All channels and in other more public areas, such as PUGs, where the less and less positively social just seem to be more vocal.

The game HAS become quite a bit less social though due to a couple things Anet did specifically, imho, but I wont go into it here, as it will just go down that road on that topic that has been beat to death a hundred fold and back again.

Can Anet actively try to improve the community, or should they? No, pretty much. Their role should be to continually infuse the community/environment with new content specifically so it does not stagnate. There isnt much they can do to improve the "community" per se, so I havent the faintest idea what Jeff is alluding to.

Why?

Won't players always exhaust their developers out of content? Is that not the true flaw of moderen game design?

What if the players had the tools to make their own fun. if the world on its own was ever-changing, uniqe, randomized and different!?


To me it seems like the more content they brought to the game, the more angry people got; "arghh... the new proffesions screwed up pvp", "grrrrr EOTN is too much of the same!!!", "heroes destroyed grouping" and so on and so forth?

They already tried that according to Gaile's posts to the effect that they don't allow 7 Heroes from one person for the sake of "encouraging a social game". Of course, almost everyone in the community rejects that idea and goes with 3 Heroes and 4 henchmen to bypass this annoying limitation.

Therefore, in my view Anet's attempt to "improve the GW community" actually accomplishes nothing whatsoever, other than to annoy good players who hate PUGs by forcing them to use sub-par henchmen instead of their perfectly fine Heroes. Even though they will still take henchmen over any PUG player, any day.

So no, Anet should not try to improve the community. It doesn't work anyhow. Anet should let players play the game how they choose to play. Including playing solo without silly arbitrary Hero restrictions.

Unfortunately players don't know what is best for the game, they just want phatlewts. You see this every time there is a skill balance. It's only a slight exaggeration to say that if you left it up to the players, skills would all do 3x as much damage, recharge instantly, and everything would drop golds and ectos. Then they'd leave, complaining about how the game was too easy or how they got bored.

I see what you mean, but dont you think that there are other ways to improve the community than encourge PUGs?

what if its more outside the game? more about yearly GW events or some Arenanet tradeshow?

what if it was about more competitions, swag, merchandise and events(like create-a-funny-video)?

what if it was just more about letting playrs do stuff - writing biographys in their game, or be able to change more things?


what if they rewarded kind players with some kind of "helper title" or something, that while they would not prepresent anet or anything they would be officially selected as community helpers or something?

what if it was more about guides, just chatting with the community, or having official forums.

I hate how unpersonal and out of touch the guild wars site is. I wanna know james phinney favorite foods and what he considers casual wear!

why is it all so stiff? lets have a more fun community! More lively. Seriously. this is going to eat us all up.

just jumping from one cynical pessimistic community to the nex.t.. what the hell is that gonna help?


why are the developers not making more fun of it all? I think if they would just increase awareness and such it would all be more interesting to be a part of all this.
but its not, because gailie just hangs around and says a bit of stuff. And no one is blaming her. she is great.

but someone... they are a big company. they could do more, if they want the community to be better.

I can understand Anets point of view. why would they love or be proud to have a community like us? what worthwhile did we ever do? to them? besides the unfrequently player who makes a "thank you anet" post about something, its all probably just trash to them.

but lets face it, it could work the other way around. At least I think so. I think GW as a tool would be able to create some positive online-meme! It shouldnt be something annoying like Leeeeeerooooyyyyyyyy jeeeeenkkkkiiins or something like that, but just something, that goes with the spirit of the game.

I wish they would mess around a bit more. be a little more unpredictable. its a great company, so why so shy and sly?

Because people would just farm it and not care about whoever they're "helping".

If you're kind enough to help someone, you don't expect any reward but a good feeling.

One thing that you have to remember, as with anything else that is online (even this website), people have immunity to their actions. You can be a complete jerk, and do the things that you wouldn't dream of in real life. The 'community' is not a community at all. The only thing most of the GW players have in common is that they play GW. Arena Net has no viable reason to cowtow to the player base, and the player base has no reason to coincide with each other. The reason? You (nobody in particular) got "insert uber drop here" and I didn't. This is not a game where the most desirable of it's aspects can be acquired by all it players. Until as recently as last year, I still played the FPS Deus Ex. The pvp community for that game was amazing, we made maps, patches, mods, and had the full support of the games developers, Ion Storm, to continue to improve it. The game was initially released in 1999.

This and another 1 or 2 sites are for all terms and purposes the "true" GW sites.

if you really want to know, you only have to ask.

Arena Net can't alter how their playerbase interacts with other players. I would like to see the community imporved, there is way too much whining and complaining, people just need to learn that their cookie cutter builds won't work everywhere, and adapt. Unfortionitly, Arena Net caters to these kinds of people and will change anything in the game if there is enough whining/complaining.

Guild Wars went down the drain with titles. This just gives people another way to be elitest and show off their e-peen. People feel that their better then you because they spend XYZ more hours smashing their keyboard buttons then you did. EPIC LULZ?

Thank god for Heroes + Hench. I never have to put up with another player again.

who cares for social group play in GW really ... most players play all selvish, want to do most stuff possible, seek ever for ways to make things SOLO, farm when best SOLO to increase the loot for themself and so on ...
Mankind is selfish ...

I can by this way only agree to the Quote here ...
GW2 at least should simple become the classical way of playing ... as long as you are too weak for something, players have to play in parties for success, but so more you level, get better stuff and so on, so more can you play with your character solo...

this system may look to much people only like "asia grinders", but in the end, its the easiest way to solve PUG problems ect and gameplay stagnation, because peopel find simple no parties, or better said "good balanced" parties, with them you maybe have a good chance of success...

With classical way, you just can play, explore ect blah blah what, whatever,whenever,whereever you want und when you hit then on enemies, that are too strong for you, you as player have the choice of

1. trying it with more players = bigger overall attack power = better chance of success, or

2. you stay first longer at places, where you have no or lesser problems and keep training for a while your character, until your character has become stronger...then you go a bit later to the place and maybe your then streong enough to completely solo the place, without having to search for any other people.

fact is, thsi way the game doesn't stagnate for anyone and that should be the goal for GW2 ...it should never again stagnate so extreme, like GW1 ...

but that has also to do with the dumb concept about several stand alone games, which have only split up the community...


but to the main topic more precise ...

I hope for the sake of GW2, that anet won't repeat lots of failures, they made with GW1..one of them is giving not the Roleplaying Part their own Districts ...
Also in kind of balancing, i dunno how the ksills in GW2 will look, but please don't make never again Skill Balances for 2 totally different playmodes together ...

Either make Skill Balances for PVE, or make balances for PVP, but not balances for both....
When a skil should be able to use in both modes, then the skill should have for each modes its own balancing...

means, while Skill X makes in PvE Damage Y, it will do in PVP only Damage Z.

By doing this, Skill balancing will also become alot easier, because you will not have to think for 2 different modes then, for 1 Skill that should be usable in both modes.

Why I say this ? easy reasoned, because balacing has ever split up the community causes if the 2 different modes, but Skill balancing for both together and not as what would have been better: skill balancing for each own mode.

When i think only how much whine/rant whatever threads were made cause of Skill Balancings, and how good these thrweads show, how iunsocially people can be...

however, i think, peopel got, what i mean with this, so I'll stop my little novel XD

True, but what I mean is that most people just go to guildwars.com . I dont understand why they are not adding peoples fanart to their side, or link to peoples pvp match videos, or link to some peoples gw comic, build or something?

Thats what I mean. its like they are not on the puls on whats going on.



Its true that the community can not be controlled, but they can give suggestions and motivations to behave in certain ways. they could increase the drop rate for PUGs, they could post social player run events on their website for more people.

they could make more dev blogs, info pages about who they are.



anyone remember friday feature way back in the day? I loved that. it was so awesome. constatly new fansites.
I really thought it was a hint to an awesome community support.


if Anet at least encourged whatever fanmade or GW-userbase related stuff there is around on these fansites on such, it could encourge more people to make stuff. Thats what I think.



They could post better explanations of the confusing parts of the story on their website or explain it to the community. there art designers could come in the screenshots forum and comment on photoshopped images made by fans. I mean... just do something.


I feel bad for gailie because besides jeffs gaming magazine interviews, she is the entire shield.. the cannon fooder for the entire company!

Lawnmower, you are right on target, but I also I agree that the community stagnates over time.

ArenaNet SHOULD be more connected with the community. Everything is starting to feel corporal, distant, and insignificant. The passion that once fueled Guild Wars is gone in most. Fan art and comics (while i'm not particularly interested in those things) would work wonders for the GW Community. Come Anet, step it up a notch,

GW is beginning to get... lonely? Nothing is as warm and full as it once was. It seems that every update that is released into the game makes players complain; no update truly appears to get positive reception. This is because unhappy people are becoming more vocal- The game is worn out. Top that with a veteran community that is exceptionally used to playing Guild Wars the way they've always been playing it, and the deterioration process intensifies and accelerates.

With cynicism and negativity, yeah I feel it too. It drives me crazy. It's hard to decide whether people are speaking what they really feel, being trolls, or just being all-around pessimistic because they're droning over one game. Cynicism is both open-mindedness' and imagination's worst enemy.

My suggestion for long-time players: Play other games and take a long break from Guild Wars. It will never again be the way it once was for you in that you've exhausted its possibilities.

If they changed some basic things it might improve the community. I'm guessing that the changes will be in gw2 not this game, but one thing I would prefer is hiding other players drops. That would cut down on begging, bickering, camping drops, etc.

I don't think there is a lot they can do about bad attitudes though. Jerks are jerks...*shrug*

Social engineering through video games FTL. Most players don't have an interest in a "community," they just want a fun game to play alone or with friends. No one is well served by a game that tries to accommodate the particularly sad species of gamer that needs to make online "friends" for lack of real ones.

G4 has been running this little clip for a while now about how the average Second Life player plays Second Life for an average of 12 minutes....a month. So yeah, gamers really want to be able to do anything. PVP is supposed to keep people busy between chapters, to bad there are a lot of elitist snobs in pvp that make it no fun to get into. Always changing with flavor of the month builds and nerfing to sad builds. But more games are coming out like Spore where people are allowed to make their own content, and upload it onto the internet for others to download and try out. Stuff like that keeps games fresh and involving while devs are working on the next game.

on guildwars.com you have this page which directly links to sites like this.

how do you think people get here? If you ever have an issue with the game the automated response is to go an post on a fansite.

Gaile is not Anets "shield" lol its sites like this they save money, stress, can ignore when they want, and have their finger on the "pulse" via fans.

people like Gaile can give Anet a general overview of the herds "mood", and overall traffic/site popularity gives the a worldwide view of game hype.

oh its clever, nearly self regulating and CHEAP.

I would say Machiavellian. gg anet.

Coursing through the community, generaly in Guild Wars, there is a lack of respect for each other as a player. This game was first designed to a be a PvP game with an addition of PvE. Very competative people start scouraging and then eventually PvE starts to dominate as the years pass. Now the game over time has been developed into basically an economy and ego game.

Though saying these things, people ingame are more so friendly with association in their respective guilds, if they are "noobs" or not, than in general All Chat or the dreaded PuGs. Alot of old players still believe on cookie cutter builds, having certain builds to be allowed to play with them.

Anet may try to improve on the community but with little effect. Through all the human nature, everyone will be opinionated. In saying that, people will have different perspectives on what their perfect GW game is, and their opinion is the only one that matters. To the matter of fact, this forum community does not represent the mass of GW.

Guild Wars 2 will be a corner stone to making a better online and forum community. In every MMO there will be rant forums. In real life, word of mouth from negative things spreads 100 times more than positive things. Should Anet try to improve THIS community? No. Anet needs to move on to GW2.

Its called guild wars for a reason. Join one, and enjoy the dying wretches of the game.

what the title says, randomly invite someone in Heros Ascent, take one every now and then.

Improving the game, providing a greater range of ways for interaction, defining a solid and positive set of rules, constantly balancing what needs to be balanced, is a better way to expand the community; so that each player can find their own thing they like.

These type of qualities are worthy goals that a passionate game developer should aspire for. That's what I infer from Strain's comment.

Worrying about improving the community specifically, getting only a certain kind of player catered for, while marginalizing others, is to take the focus out of what the development of a game should be about...

I have NO problem marginalizing griefers, leavers, leecher, racists, scammers, hackers, botters and the like...Socially catering to players who would like community play seems viable. Building a community of dedicated, friendly players only ads to the experience and strengthens the game. Why not cater to these people? The more of these people you have, the more you get...

Group behavior is an interesting dynamic that is easily manipulated...increase rewards (intrinsic and extrinsic) for those working together vs. those who choose not to join the group, and you will have more people grouping together...Those who solo, generally choose to go it alone for several reasons: loot scale, time constraints, PUG dynamics (social retardation). Increase the reward for group play and more people will do it...trouble is, the quality of those people is out of the hands of game designers. If the rewards are high enough, however, Mr. Jackass may well suspend his disruptive behaviors in favor of receiving a reward only acquired through genuine cooperative play.

I'm not in favor of nerfing solo play (I spend 95% of my time playing with AI)...but, I know I personally would join more groups if it were required for a reward not available or more difficult to acquire by myself. As it is, I henched/heroed my way through 10 titles because the reward for doing so alone was no different than if I had done it with a PUG or Guildies. With a PUG, it would have taken 10 times as long....Can you imagine Cartography titles with PUGS? If the reward were a quicker title by combining efforts and clearing as a group...each player accounting for their section of map clearing towards the title for every person in the group..."OK guys, split up"...Or what about loot scaling INCREASING dependant on the number of real players in the group...say an increase of 2-5% chance of getting gold items per real person? A group of 8 having a 16-40% greater chance of a gold drop simply by working together...I'd PUG more.

IMHO the creators of GW have done a great job with the game in spite of the several skill changes that have challenged me to create new and abandon old builds. The community in the game, however, has not changed for the better. There are fewer old-timers like me who really remember and appreciate the game as it once was...I the begining when everyone was impressed with a non-max gold bow with a 13 req because no one else had one. Back when players who had made it to Lion's Arch came back and helped out those who hadn't without a fee...When it was such that all was new and everyone wanted to accomplish the same goals of beating the next mission and finding out what comes next because no one knew...

Now GW has become like any other community without common goals. Everyone wants something else...and why shouldn't they, really? But without common goals we become divided and only want what we want, with little consideration for others. I play alone, now....I didn't always. I've been trained to play alone through the consequences of negative behavior of others....there is little reward for me to play with other people...so I don't. How many of us are there out there who WOULD play with others, if there were a good reason to?

Should ANet do something more about it? Naw...Could they if they really wanted to? Maybe...but what reward is there in it for THEM? Will we be grateful...will we do OUR part to make it a better place...What would it take to get us to be better people online? What reward...intrinsic or extrinsic would make it worth it for everyone to play fair, be kind and helpful and not cause others greif. You figure that out, friend, and you just fixed the world.

Any abusive behaviour should be discouraged, like in any community.

And Anet has been doing something about it. Loot scaling turned out to be a wise decision in the long term. One just need to take a look at the price of gold selling these days. Also, reporting players of wrong doings might not be perfect but is a mechanism that seems to be doing more good than harm.

A game like Guild Wars has benefited from its constant evolution. I don't feel nostalgic at all of how things were before. We all have to move forward or risk stagnation. Who can say that Guild Wars would now have only a handful of players for not letting go of the "old ways"? These changes through time have made players rethink strategies and see through entirely different perspectives and that can only be a good thing. But a game has its limitations in technology so, Guild Wars 2, I'm looking forward to it.

But in order for the social aspect of the game to be enhanced, then I agree that some inner-workings should be expanded: Provide players with better customizable Guild Halls with better options for player interactivity; an in-game chat service; more manageable options for the friends list, an in-game email system with an option to attach game items; encourage a full-player team by dropping more/better loot or give more experience in combat, etc...

Giving more options and structured freedom for players to do whatever they want is my idea of game bliss.