Shall Anet open GW2 to the community via democratisation?

Yes, very true. The problem is, as mentioned many times over, that most of the stuff on the forums is random noise. I wouldn't call it an ideal situation where those in charge must wade through 20 pages of mindless bickering with zero information content to find that single insightful piece of information. Fril started this thread with an example of how this problem is being treated in another game but it doesn't mean that the particular method would work for GW2 as well. More importantly, it doesn't mean that the problem goes away just by rejecting one particular solution.

The economical model of GW prevents ANet from hiring a large group of GMs who would act as a natural crap filter for community feedback, so it is up to us ourselves to try to find new solutions. If any kind of representative system is out of question because of general lack of trust, nothing prevents us from inventing new ways to solve the problem. As has been mentioned, wikis have a much better signal-to-noise ratio than general discussion forums while still maintaining essential anarchy. Maybe a side project of the official wiki could be developed into a feasible feedback channel, as a kind of a glorified Sardelac, with main pages providing digested, balanced feedback and all the messy details getting pushed to the discussion pages?

One more time, please keep posting new ideas and constructive criticism. If the best you can manage is one-liners like 'fail' then you're part of the problem instead of the solution (not directed at you Iuris, but those that are guilty of raising the noise level should reconsider their strategy).

So, to summarise the output of this thread, based on tmakinen 2 excellent ideas:

1) a forum of GW ambassadors in direct contact with Anet devs;

2) a Sardelac wiki dedicated to player suggestions and criticisms.

Let's discuss their pros and cons! (I think that 1 is a modified version of the council I mention in the OP)

1) Same as earlier - too many selection issues. And open forum = fan forums
2) bit either or on this one - While the wiki pages in the main space may not be complete crap, talk pages often are, so that doesn't do particularly much. You'd still have to use the talk page to get through all the crap, so that's basically OP = page, replies = talk page, assuming that the OP updates the first post. The major benefit of the wiki, though, is that it's much easier to read things with less fancy stuff in the way :P. Gaile already has several pages that function roughly like two; I'm not sure what will happen to those, though. It seems like a wiki just for suggestions would be overkill. Maybe a small section of the wiki could be dedicated to it, but not an entire standalone wiki.

You guys are forgetting one thing: Anet. We don't know how they wanne communicate in the future. You can make a dozen councils or wikis or whatever, if they don't like to get in contact it won't make any difference.

Don't get me wrong, I like fresh new ideas, but one of the main actors here is Anet and till this day the fan forums are the way to go it seems.

We should get some feedback from them on this one if possible.

1. Unnecessary, Anet employs people for this purpose, I'm not voting for someone I dont know nor do I want politics in my game and you can say thats not the point of the discussion but then you're simply being silly, politics WILL ensue.

2. What the hell is the difference between forum posts and a wiki? Just because its a wiki it doesnt gain any importance

Again, what you want is lovely and admirable but the format of GW is wholly unsuitable for it, you want a Web 2.0 version of Gw and I pray that will never come to pass because it will be the death of GW.
Your ideas might be suitable for an Open Source game, they're not suited for a GW due to its financial model alone.

PS: Hellgate was a mismanaged, rushed out game full of bugs and performance issues, imho the only reason they are turning to the users now is because they never did it before releasing the game.

We already have players that the developers listen to, don't we?

Isaiah Cartwright already appreciates Charles Ensigns input, without him having to become an ambassador or something like that.

I also like the idea of everyone having to say something, ANet can then pick the input they want. Not only that of a group of elect hardcore gamers, this would not do good in the long run.


Regarding EVE Online, I doubt this will work, given their track record of power abuse by employees and big corps.
There were issues of Devs providing BOB with rare blueprints and other stuff, and there was lots of trouble about it. Even the person who discovered this was banned and I do not even know if he got his account back yet.
Then there was this hype about Istvaan Shoogatsu basically griefing another player and his corp to hell, EVE being the only MMO where this was not punished, but published as cool.

http://myeve.eve-online.com/download...CSMSummary.pdf
http://myeve.eve-online.com/download/devblog/CSM.pdf (more into detail)

This is what CCP plans to do.

To quote from their PDF, I would say EVE is still almost in this stage:

"Tribal Societies , in which there are some limited instances of social rank and prestige"

Their plans to make EVE a "democracy" (overused word, loses more and more meaning) will not work, because the elected democrats will be from the corps or supported by the corps (big guilds) that can make their people vote, not the more casual EVE players.

And this is my gripe:
All of them have unfortunately NOT shown social attitude, but pure capitalism, all for the benefit of their own corporation in the end, everything else by far secondary. Ruthless enough to make use of any cheat and exploit they could get their hands on.

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingamebo...hreadID=732016

If you read the thread, you sometimes get info who is the "alt" char of whom or affiliated with whom.

But how many EVE players actually know the background of the candidates. You know even less about them than in the normal citizen about most candidates he is voting for in elections.


Besides that, what should this council do in GW actually. GW is heavily instanced and there is not so much social interaction to discuss. And a discussion about game mechanics and stuff does not really need a council.

I would see a council as either having no influence or meaning or having a bad influence.

The EVE player council concept is just a gimmick to try and compensate for all of their slip ups in the past.

Thanks for the link, this is definitely a must-read. It looks like MMO players starting to do politics, getting to grisp with the system (the Big picture vs. interests) and learning by mistakes (you also realise how different EVE is from GW). This is what democracy is about at its core, creating a public place (the Agora) where individuals communicate and exchange to create a better world, but recent RL times have shown the consolidation of individualism is more important to people than the success of the common good (btw, totally unrelated, but read the Rough guide to a Better World! end of publicity). Mistrust is commonplace nowadays because security gets distorted and problems are escalated to the point where it becomes part of us, you're assumed to be untrustworthy by default and, as mentioned above, the circle of trusted ones is very, very small.

From the very low turnout on this thread and the answers against these ideas (not one in particular, I proposed on in the OP that I developped, then tmakinen got 2 different ideas and there was another the /suggest from trialist), I guess that a lot of people are happy with the current situation, and/or do not bother to think about this topic (it may be seen as too "serious" for a game). Fair enough. I believe we're missing an opportunity here, because with 2 great CRs gone from the CR job (but not Anet it seems), we can contribute to shape the future. Of course (for Gun Pierson) Anet will very probably not say anything here, which does not mean they're not reading, and they may well publish soon their plans (if they've got any, may be they're dropping this CR thing because it's so counter-productive, I remember how people bashed Gaile on the mini polar bear affair and I would understand if Anet were to stop the loss of time and money here).

I'm almost tempted to create a new thread on "Who would candidate as GWG ambassador", just to "provoke" more discussion and see the mood and potential of the idea. But I won't, because I believe that this cause is lost, despite the great contributions on this thread.

No, the consensus is not indifference, it is that it is a BAD IDEA.

Appointing ambassadors in GW is equal to giving access to ANets ear to a small subset of the biggest guilds and/or people who have the means but no qualms about rigging online polls. They would NOT be speaking for me, as I am a casual player in a microscopic guild, they would be speaking for their very large guild and/or their gold-vending company.

It is therefore NOT in my best interest that such ambassadors are appointed.

I am NOT indifferent to your suggestion, I am AGAINST it. It is my firmly held belief that my interests are better served by ANet NOT having to listen to the views of a small clique of powergamers.

Yes, I know that there already exist such a small clique of powergamers with access to ANets ear; that does not mean I would like the situation given legitimacy. The situation in EVE is completely different, as the entire game is about big corporations screwing small corporations for fun & profit. Having elections like these, with the associated backstabbing, corruption & drama, is simply part of the EVE gaming experience.


That the discussion in this thread has been confused by people apparently thinking that you suggested player rule, and people obviously ignorant about what "democracy" is, well, that is just unfortunate, but doesn't change my view.

This is what I meant by the part before the "or" word, which is:

a lot of people are happy with the current situation

which (at least in my mind, sorry of this wasn't clear, it was a case of double-negatives which is not so clear after all) meant that the idea of changing it (e.g. this thread) is not good/bad.

Happy?

If you're not interested in discussion or negative feedback, go put your idea in Sardelac and ask for /signed, kthx.

A direct connection between players and devs isn't more beneficial to the game than what already exists. Ditto for player representatives.

Because I'm a good sport, I'll suggest yet another way to implement a high signal-to-noise medium: the Slashdot system of karma, moderation and meta-moderation. If you're not familiar with the concept, here are the essentials:

• every registered member of the forums has a certain reputation or 'karma' which can be positive or negative
• you gain positive karma when others moderate your contributions up in significance, and negative karma when others moderate your contributions down in significance
• those with high enough karma will on occasion receive a small number of moderation points they can use to moderate other contributions
• one cannot both contribute and moderate in the same thread
• those with high enough karma will on occasion be asked to meta-moderate the moderation decisions of others - they will be presented a random contribution and it's moderation and asked to evaluate if the moderation was fair or not - if the moderation is deemed to be unfair, the original moderator will lose karma

These basic rules are quite effective at weeding out the chaff - it is still there but when reading the discussion you can choose the level of significance you want to see.

I would guess that people who actually oppose any attempts to raise the signal-to-noise ratio are doing so out of fear of getting cut out of the loop if noise is all they can produce ...

I actually asked for a discussion. I didn't say "negative", which I've already commented about in this thread (please read it to be convinced of that), but "destructive". Please, please, stop reading only the cover of the book, read what's inside. For example the fact that I did acknowledge how unpopular this idea is and the dead status of this thread, despite the fact that the interesting people continue to post interesting posts.

I was not aggressing people (even said sorry for possible misunderstanding!) and felt aggressed by the tone of replies, but as tmakinen said, let's noise be noise. If you think that my thread is "noise, simply ignore it! Otherwise, what are you fighting against?

A truly beautiful system (that I've studied in my line of work) whose details are here:
http://slashdot.org/moderation.shtml
http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml

The funny thing is that, apart from seeing your post in the thread, you have no guarantee that it is read. I'd even say that on GWG, 50% of the time, your post is physically read but misunderstood (that happens to everyone of course, but when it becomes so widespread, communication suffers and become cumbersome).

You're still not convinced this is a bad idea, despite overwhelming opposition and arguments to boot. You're thinking you're just ahead of the times and that we plebeians are uninformed. I redirect you to Sardelac again, where you can talk with other like-minded people who know how to run a game.

Arenanet doesn't suffer from communication issues - they have sufficient knowledge of the issues plaguing players. They don't need player ambassadors to tell them that PvErs want an Auction House. Finding effective solutions and implementing them are where Arenanet has trouble.

If I am reading and understanding the OP's (and supporter's) basic question correctly, it is:

Should there be clearer cut way for the Powers That Be at ANet to get a 'feel' for what the players want?

And if the answer to that question, in your opinion, is 'yes', then:

How can/should feedback such as that be structured and implemented?


I don't think I represent the 'average' GW player. I do, however, think I am part of a huge chunk of like minded players. I'm female, 40+ (waay plus ::coughs: mainly interested in PvE, though I have done a bit of PvP, and play GW to have fun with a group of people like me. I've belonged to 3 guilds now all made up of the same type of players - one being strictly made up of ONLY female PLAYERS not just female characters - so we're out there and part of the GW world.

But, how do 'we' get our feedback to ANet? I'm the only one of my current guild that even reads fan-based sites, let alone post. I would really like to be able to express my thoughts and views to the Devs, but how?

There is too much frustrating negativity that message boards digress into, such as we've seen here. I think the OP threw out the original EVE plan as merely an example - "Look, here's what another on-line game is doing. What about a structured feedback system for GW players? Some way ANet can get the feedback without having to spend countless hours wading through crap." From what I've read, no where did he/she suggest that the development of GW be placed in the hands of the players, yet this is what most have focused on.

So, my answer to the original question:

Yes, I think there should be a more precise method for ANet to gather player-based input.

To the then proposed question of 'how' and 'who'? That's a tough one. How would you choose a group that fairly represents the vast, deversified player base?

By chance, I found a bit of what I was proposing in this article (only the highlighted part is relevant to this thread, but the rest is still interesting):
http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cf...RE=1861&bhcp=1
Thanks RitGal for a Woman in Games viewpoint and contribution. (btw and even if it's off-topic: how many of the women players you've encountered play PvP in GW?)

For the GoPetz thing, the devs are picking the features... pretty sure they wouldn't be putting compensation for player stupidity on that list.

<- and in game dev, though that's not a main focus for now

No, if anything, I think A-Net listened too much to players and their gripes for GW1. I'd like to see them insulate themselves from the community a little more in the GW2 era, and do what they feel is best for the game and what they want for the game, not what all of the QQers and trolls think is best.

The Karma system ends up inverting after people start giving +rep or +karma for anything, rather than real contributions.

i would love to see something like this. i think its in anets best interest to do something like this because it would help them know exactly what we who bought there game want from there game.

They can get all that info from the many fan sites. It's not hard to work out what the assorted GW crowds want

PvP wants a lively meta
Farmers want to farm
Traders want decent shit to sell
Casual/lazy players want easy access to everything
Game players want plenty of quests/missions
Hardcore no lifers want unlimited level cap/grind titles

If a video game company can't work out something that simple, they're in deep shit.

well obviously... what i meant is that they should come out and say what do you think if we added this game mechanic and we could give them valuable info about that i think. theres just so many times in games where i think oh wow they fail for adding or doing that this way. or on the other had i think oh man i wish i could do this like i can in another game. its just little tweaks and stuff like that, that i think anet could really benifet from.

I vote for removing all gold and drops and the game letting me pick any weapons or armor I want to use when I want to use it.

I also vote for starting out max level.

I agree there is a large amount of pointless jibber jabber on this forum (and others) that makes it more difficult for interesting, innovative ideas to get through. On the other hand, once you've hung around a bit, you get a feel for where the different posters are coming from and who have point of view or a "voice" worth listening to. For instance, TMakanin, you, and Savio are people (among others) I will always read with interest when I see a post. Have a little faith in the judgment of others to ignore the pointless.

I'm sure Gaile and the other Anet folk who read the threads have developed a sense for what are the typical overreactions they should ignore versus the more serious issues that need addressing. Look at how fast they jump on exploits like duping when they are identified. Look how long they can go without commenting on issues like loot scaling or the Xunlai marketplace when they choose to. That tells me they have sound instincts.

If I'm wrong, and they have started paying less attention to Guru because of out-of-control flaming, then I think your idea has real merit. If that's the case, though, only they know it, and it's up to them to set guidelines for some sort of player council.

I would personally not welcome such an arrangement as it would say to me something had broken down. It would add an extra layer between me and Anet, and I would feel as if my influence - limited though it be - had diminished.

I would prefer to add mechanisms within Guru to limit the trolling and flaming. The moderators here aren't bad. They have always scrubbed the totally flamey, troll posts I've reported. But I think something like the slashdot karma system would be really welcome. That form of democratization I could go for.

This would only be possible in the slightest if skilled players were put in the place. The problem with this is that the vast majority are not, and are thus unable to tell the difference. Often it's the players of the game who have the least idea of how to make the game better, and Guild Wars is no exception.

Who would you consider for it? The person who clears the same area over and over and has immense gold? The trader who doesn't play the game itself? The team leader who sleepwalks people along using well-defined skill sets?

Having some sort of representation from the community is good and has been done (alpha testers etc) but not properly utilized. Democratizing it seems to be asking for problems, though.

Do you have proof of that or is it your perception of the thing on slashdot?

Because from what I've read (on slashdot and articles on the topic), it does not seem true. Karma is only one of the three elements of the system, with moderators and meta-moderators. The rules for moderator selection are very smart, making sure that a subtle balance is reached (read the above link I posted), and meta-moderators prevent abuse (and I haven't seen any proof of them being unfair).

I want to mention that on the topic of selecting players for a council of players, there seems to be less problems for PvP ,where I regularly see names like JR or Ensign mentioned, rather than for PvE (as Avarre mentions). It is my belief that it is still possible, and even preferable to the current situation (but I've convinced no one ), by starting the process. What we see in EVE (which is, I realise, a totally different game where player interaction is more rough) is IMHO the beginning of a new process, structure being built not only around the game but in player's mind. May as people said, GW is not a game for that kind of mindset, but IMHO GWG shows that a (small) fraction of the GW population is ready for that.

I want to emphasize the fact that this idea is not exclusive, devs and CRs shall continue to do their job, and this council would work in parrallel (it'd only succeed if it proved better than the other means, or else it die of a natural death).

Lastly, I'd like to mention a phenomenon no GWG where a lot of people are now reacting almost always negatively, preventing any positive effort to be successful by the sheer social pressure. Not only are trolls happier than ever (and mods busier than ever), but there's a range of middle GWGers than post on GWG as a game of e-peen, or who's got the most influential opinion. I understand that GW being only a game, we don't need to be too serious, but then if that was so clear cut, players would be relaxed on GWG, wouldn't they? When a community like GWG grows past a certain critical mass (not only by the number of players but also by the average age in time and post numbers) chaos starts to dillute the contribution. Sure, you can always filter the noise as hallomik says, but as tmakinen pointed out, the pollution levels gets in the way.

I remember great proposals like Chthon's url filtering to combat gold-selling ads. I mention this one, but there are a lot more brilliant ideas floating around. What happens to them? How does Anet show us they're listening and think it's a good or bad idea, possibly explaining us the reasons? It's a lot of positive contributions (and energy) lost in a sea of meaningless proposals.

I thought that such a democractic move would force people to organise, avoid QQs and endless debate, and most importantly start the process of structuring our community. But it does not seem necessary, people are happy with chaos .

You seem to think that doing Anet's job is simple and straightforward, and I actually thought of challenging you to propose here a game design that would fit the bill you propose here (but it's a game I won't play here). A lot of these requirements are conflicting, as we can see every day in various threads.

Take the issue of LS removal and the corresponding thread. How is this clear cut? How can Anet make sense of this 57-pages long discussion? Are they going to go through each posts, spend hours filtering it, while this time is very precious to spend on programming or design? How do we transform these 57 pages into something constructive? (I'd say that the answer is: create a job for an economist to study the state of trade, gold income and sinks) And even if Anet is listening, how do we know what they think? (you may say that we don't need to know, we're just customers, and that's fair enough but believe that a bidirectional communication leads to a more stable and long-term relationship)

Couldn't have said it better myself.
I'd much rather have the game mirror the vision of the game designers than the wishes of farmers or whomever complains the loudest (also farmers), because what farmers want is infinite, repetitive, and easy, grind.

People do not engage in fantasy games so they can be forced to organise, most do it to relax and have fun. Normal people have real lifes and are allready organised and don't need virtual organisation on top of that. GW is not a Sim, where you have to build and organise a community, and please don't try to use the player base as your personal Sim.

Game designers that insulate themselves from the player base = Game Fail, in my opinion. Listening to legitimate gripes and suggestions (and learning to distinguish those from "QQers and trolls") is essential.

If anything, I think ANet insulates itself a little too much from its player base. I have to give Blizzard great credit for having staffers not only monitor their forums but also occasionally responding (in the forums) to player concerns, suggestions, and grievances. ANet could learn a thing or two from Blizzard on that score.

I think ANet is savvy enough to peruse a forum and be able to sift wheat from chaff. In fact, as I have suggested earlier, I think ANet should set up its own discussion forum for GW2 (as other MMOs do). More than that, if I were ANet, I would monitor said forum and "flag" players (unbeknownst to them) who make worthwhile and constructive posts and keep an eye on what they had to say.

I would most certainly not. Players, being players, have an agenda. Players don't have the overarching view of the game one would expect of a development team, nor the objectivity required to make balanced decisions. (Those that do anyway: What's the matter with you guys! We're talking about frigging games here! You're not supposed to analyze them to death! Get a job in the industry or get over yourselves!)

Games like this are already designed by committee; committees of industry professionals. Individual players shouldn't have anything worthwhile to contribute that a development team couldn't think of themselves.

The only player input developers should be dealing with are the broadest generally upheld sentiments. Those affect business. Anything beyond that, is their own job. They should strive to be good at it instead of chasing after the input of a handful of mythical super-players.

I was even more laughing when reading your message with a different picture in mind: it's exactly what's happening with modern politics. People are no longer involved and see it from their own little local point of view (nothing wrong here, of course, it's only a problem when you loose perspective and the big picture). It's become a game lead by master players.

BTW, I disagree that all players have agendas (what's mine? ). Some are just more open-minded and others are too careless, while the majorite plays the game and stop playing it when they closed the client. I never, ever said anywhere in this thread that my vision was superior to anyone's. I'm just sad about all this positive energy unfocused and lost in the sea of fansites (though GWG have achieved great many things, kudos to the staff). I thought I may start a revolution (just kidding ) but, well, as some say, "it's the interwebz! get a life!"

trm819: I'm not sure if Anet would go for the fansite solution, how would they avoid the trolling, QQing and other problems that you can see on GWG? Maybe if GWG staff is paid by Anet, they can make a better job?

Heh. You can't avoid any of that, but you can learn to skip the junk to see what the valid hot-button issues are. And you can also begin to see patterns in the posters. There are people on these boards whose posts I nearly *always* read, whose opinions (though I may disagree) I have come to respect. There are others who are flame-happy or just plain silly or who QQ a lot. It doesn't take long to discern who is who, really, it doesn't.

Back when I was playing WoW, I would peruse -- and occasionally post -- to the forums there. I was impressed by the occasional Blizzard staff posts in those forums. They took a lot of abuse, yes, but they did occasionally respond to player concerns, sometimes by introducing in-game changes. I have seen many game-based forums where there is actual dialog between developers and players (wow! what a concept!), and I have to say I find that pretty refreshing. On the Mythos forum (a game currently in closed beta), I have really enjoyed the way the beta testers and developers interact on the forum to refine and improve the game. Mythos is going to be a much better game when it finally gets released because of this openness and cooperation.

ANet, in contrast, comes across (to me) as a remote "we know better than you" Great Stone Face in terms of customer relations. GW is a fine game, imo, but ANet's approach to PR is not very good.

I was just looking at ANet's press releases. The most recent one there is dated August 2007. I think that's just lame.

Okay, I admit it... I want Arenanet to give female assassins bigger chests. Nothing is more important than that.

This. Although I'm disappointed about how Arenanet makes decisions, given their history of game updates (or lack thereof at times). Still, that's not a problem that increased player-dev interaction will solve.

Additionally I think people are expecting a lot more from a game developer than they should. It isn't necessarily Arenanet's duty to tell us what they do or to let us decide what should happen in the game.

I thought about this thread again yesterday (sorry for thread-res but I'll re-use it rather than off-topic another thread or create a new one) when someone talked about the "LS removal" thread. Wouldn't it be great to have more precise feedback from Anet on this topic? It may well be that Anet does not want to talk about it (no news on the wiki), but sometimes it'd be great if they were forced to answer our questions (not in the sense that they owe it to us, but rather that it creates a better communication and relationship)

I also thought about good reasons why this idea of player council shouldn't happen when reading this article about what governments could envisage to do with regards to MMOs:
http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cf...re/1871/page/1

A funny update on this topic:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild...ucrat_election

Apparently Gw players can vote for buraucrats on the official GW wiki. Note that it's been happening for 10 months already and their power is completely limited to the wiki.

/end of thread-res (mods are going to hate me! feel free to close to avoid +1ing...)

Time to update this thread with some fresh and interesting news about EVE's Stellar Council. It looks like it's been a very rough first month for this new concept and it sounds like good old politics . I fear they'll need a 2.0 version of the council to make it work, partly because of CCP lack of details for this vision. I'd like to see more of this spawning everywhere, e-democracy in action, but I guess that numbers speak for themselves, 11% of voters is much worse than in real polls. People don't want to be bothered.

http://www.massively.com/2008/06/23/...-one-month-on/