Anet Has Gotten Themselves Into Fishy Waters

Anet has gotten themselves into fishy waters with community relations.

Originally this was going to be a post in the rawr got deleted thread, but I decided that the rawr situation, along with the rawr getting disqualifed are just examples of the situation between Anet and the playerbase community.

MMORPGS (or massivly multiplayer online games in general) usually take one of two stances: Completely disconnected from the community in terms of relations, with the CR as the bridge to relay the specific opinions of the community/company without bias from the other side.

The other would be the company being very involved with the community/playerbase, restoring hacked accounts, actively trading/communication between the community and devs or other company figures.

The latter stance is usually one of a private server or FREE game (where RL currency is not directly involved). Large businesses where the game is openly marketed and sold almost always adapts the first stance (or at least attempts too). When the company employees and public start to mix is when issues like favoritism and the sort crop up. I believe this issues even being rumored of IS VERY BAD FOR ANY COMPANY. Free games can get away with this as no currency nor the health of individuals is (usually) involved, giving claims no legal grounds.

WHEN REAL CASH IS INVOLVED, COMPANY FAVORITISM AND THE THINGS IT BORDERS ON AND LEADS TO CAN BE CONSIDERED ILLEGAL (or, as said, lead to things considered illegal).

Which would, of course, lead to legal actions taken against a company.

And I believe Anet has gotten into a situation where they are BEGINNING to mix company with community. The rawr deletion, and rawr DQ situations are all possible example's of this. (Notice a triend that all 3 are based around guild-Anet relations?)

Perhaps theres some sort of law or act somewhere protecting Anet from this sort if thing, but regardless of the laws (as the laws and policies can be blurry things, especially on a global basis). And its when lines get blurred that stuff happens.

Im also, self admittedly, very uneducated on the topic of what global MMO companies can and can-not be sued for. Any info here would be great.

The early minipet thing was cleared up. Andrew apologized. What more do you want?

I see no favoritism either. AP joined rawr to help them set up for the tourny. It would have been stupid not to.

Also, there has been no official confirmation of anyones account being restored so thats just ideal gossip.

Less conspiracy theories, more playing.

You dont get the point. There shouldnt be conspiracy theories in the first place. Just the fact that there is reason to have conspiracy theories is BAD news when real-world currency is involved. That, and only 1/3 of those were conspiracies. Also please keep the 4chan to a minimum. ohwait, nvm

And that's all that needs to be said. At least, I'm assuming you read the thread that made it clear in order to know this.

Every single game has conspiracies about it. The larger it is, the more ludicrous it becomes. My favourite one being "ArenaNet makes gold from the gold sellers!" Yeah, that one is as old as the internet.

Still, if you believe the conspiracies of an online game...

Alright, edited out the minipets thing, appeased? Try not to focus on one small part of the big picture.

Forums breed stupidity. Stupidity breeds rumors. Rumors breed conspiracy theory threads.

It's a vicious cycle.

Only if Conspiracy Theory threads breed forums

Win xD .

Team QQ forums!

Win XD

i find it unfair, no matter how upsetting it is to go through, for some, and some to not be able to have their proven hijacked accounts fully restored.

if you have gum, you better flippin have it for the whole class.

I work for a games developer and i can't stress just how important it is to maintain the trust of your playerbase/community. So far Anet is failing at this more and more by staying quiet about the recent and rather shockingly large number of accounts that have been hacked.

Perhaps instead of releasing updates about skill reversions and balancing the game they could make accounts more secure so people will be more inclined to continue playing the game.

The lack of direct communication and relaying of information between Anet, specifically Regina, and the community is somewhat disconcerting. Obviously we cant be told the exact details for the fixes they make to counter hackers but some information regarding what Anet plans to do would be nice. Do they ever plan on giving back items lost to players who were hacked? Are they going to start improving account security etc?

Its these sort of things we need to know and while i understand Anet is focused on GW2 at the moment. They need to remember NOT to forget the huge playerbase still playing GW because at the present moment if the GW2 account security is anywhere like it is for GW i'm reconsidering buying GW2.

Anet harvests the organs of little kids for sale in the black market.

Conspiracy theories are JUST conspiracy theories. They are completely baseless. Just because some rumour blows out of proportion does not mean it holds any weight.

From a legal standpoint, nothing a.net has done even comes close to being illegal, like at all.

I can understand the favoritism complaints (and the sticky situations you see with ZoS), but there is no law protecting a.net from this sort of behavior... because there is nothing illegal about their behavior that needs protection.

Anet created this thread as a conspiracy to keep our attention away from the real conspiracy... Anet was playing AoC all the memorial day weekend.

Not really as of yet, but the current situation is leading down the road to the sort of thing.

Plat cape guild gets the cape restored.

Silver cape guild doesn't get the cape restored.

The leaders/members/officers of both guilds are customers. Some customers get different treatment than others? Perhaps if you could "buy" your stuff back it would be fair, but obviously that not the case. Sounds fishy to me.

This is not the "[rawr] got DELETED" thread part 2. Stop posting about whether certain hacked people should have things restored.

Anet is giving up on GW, I've heard countless times about how they are going to fix things. Then when GW2 was announced they said they'll fix it for GW2 and leave GW how it is; full of bugs, exploits, and shitty security. Anet doesn't want to admit their flaws so they try blaming other people. Your account gets hacked they tell you to use a better password and say it's your own fault. When several accounts get hacked they don't say a thing and run off to hide in the corner.

I hope it doesnt end up like that. But the hacking/restoring issue is part of the bigger topic, as is rawr getting deleted. Neither of these are the focus of what im trying to get at, just parts.

If you're restricting posts specifically (and only) about people getting they're stuff hacked and not contributing to the main Idea, then I completely agree.

If you're restricting anything even hinting at/mentioning hacking and the sort then lock it now, as discussion will be severely limited.

They are rawr, have earned (albeit, sometimes controversially) 5 gold capes.

Whatever silver cape guild you're talking about, has not.

Rawr helped organise Rawr Cup. Silver cape guild DID NOT.

They hadn't gotten their 5 cape reward cape (STOP SAYING PLATINUM, IT'S THE SAME COLOUR AS SILVER YOU IDIOTS), so they should on their remade guild.

End of discussion.

When will people learn that arena net does not care what we think or how we feel. We already spent our money on their product, they only have to make their next product as appealing so we (the stupid consumer) will buy it again. And after we spend our money on that product they wont care how we feel or what we think. Its anets buisness model.

I see only one solution that will affect future treatment by anet.
If we,you,I don't like how anet handles things. then Quit playing guildwars and do not buy guildwars 2. This will show them that even stupid consumers wont put up with crap forever.

But I know that no one will do that, People are way to soft or they don't think it will ever happen to them. All I ever seen of these posts is what anet is doing, not what we the consumers can do about it.

We know about all the problems, we know its going to keep happening, nothings going to change. So stop acting suprised when it happens.
Find a solution that thousands of stupid consumers are willing to act on.

Anet won't change, its up to the players to make things happen.