An Open Letter to ANet - Part 2

But did I , or the other GW players choose you , the voice of the community to actually be the voice of the community. You compared it to the federal goverment of Canada. Did you vote for them , or did they just proclaimed themselves to be our voice and know what's best for us?

FYI: Among all the GW forums, Guru is the smallest, but has a reputation for having a very high density of skilled players....and thus an excellent signal-to-noise ratio, comparatively.

Is Guru representative? It's representative of people who know how to succeed in this game. People who don't know how to succeed probably shouldn't be directly represented at all. Because they don't know what they need. They know what they want, but that's not the same thing.

Well if the rest of the community voiced their opinions, the game would be in a better state.

People who post on these forums are people who care about the game whether or not they disagree or agree with anything. They make contributions to Arena Net simply by posting and voicing their opinions, and if the majority don't speak up, then you might aswell look towards the people who actually speak out and discuss with other players.

One more thing: A poll in the log in screen could be an opportunity to get mass feedback on hot topics, if Anet wants to have that information.

For example:
Do you like to have the option to play with 7 heroes:
1) yes
2) no
3) I don't care

That could have some uses, but I'm a tad cynical. The GW masses (or the masses of anything, be it game, country, etc) are similar to the child that refuses to eat vegetables or go to school, and wants chocolate instead. He doesn't know what's good for him.

Everyone is right now speaking in general and vague terms. It's ridiculous to say that Guru does or does not represent the community. It doesn't matter. You don't know if it does. The developers don't know if it does. The majority opinion on this forum could very well represent what 90% of the playerbase thinks. But you'll never know and neither will Anet. Which is why Regina made her post, to tell you that Anet is looking for better ways for players to voice that opinion and for Anet to listen to that voice.

You can't bash the only method they have right now of gathering feedback by proclaiming "it doesn't represent the community." It's the only thing they've got. Whether it does or does not is irrelevant until Anet finds a better way to gather that feedback. So right now... the forums, the wiki comments, the emails and PM's are Anet's only means of gathering feedback. If 9 out of 10 people in a thread say they like/hate something then Anet has to accept the possibility that this IS the opinion until they actually find a method of getting a more diverse one. Otherwise every move they make is just a shot in the dark.

We all know that every move a company makes there will be people who like or dislike it. People who can list every reason for it being good, and every reason for it being bad. Then those in the middle who can't care. It's also commonly known that complainers have the ear of the company. You can't improve in the right direction if you don't know what the opinion of your customers is. If you have ineffective means of gathering that data then anything goes. You are taking a chance with every single decision you make and it will hurt your bottom line after a while.

What do you do when a number of people are all voicing the same complaint in a company then? You address it. You'll never win back everyone though. Really good companies, that continue to thrive, do actually concentrate on their customer service. That customer service can only address the needs and wants of those that choose to have a voice though. If you remain on the sideline then you leave yourself little choice but to accept what is thrown at you. If you do take the time to write your complaints, your concerns, your questions down then it is good business practice for a company to listen and, in the best way they can, acknowledge that they heard. No they can't solve or bow to your whim but what most people are looking for when they have a complaint is acknowledgement that it's being looked at.

This is a lot of rambling for a point that I made in my first paragraph. Anet would be wise to listen to the voice of the player by the only means that they have provided and encouraged us to use... the forums. They don't have to agree with the user, but if a number of users pop up saying "hey I feel the same way" you've got a red flag that you can go off of and use. Isn't a common repsonse from NCSoft support to post that suggestion on one of the GW forums? If support is directing you to use a resource then of course one is going to believe that Anet is actually themselves using that as a resource for suggestions, complaints, concerns and questions the players have.

Not one of us speaks for anyone else. But I do believe that Anet can follow a discussion and draw their conclusions on whether a good number of people support or don't support a thread. Why we are fighting over whether this forum or a particular user represents that voice is silly... Anet has told us to use this as a resource for delivering constructive feedback.

Excelent post Inde, the only question it raises for my part is do we know exactly how much info they can gleen from the game itself?

Can Anet tell just how many players are making use of a specific skill or farming a certain map?

We do know they can tell how much cash we have in storage. I would also assume they know how many of any one type of items have been generated in the game, ie they know how many Torment weapons exist and how many accounts but not the ratio of how many are on one account.

We do know they read the forums and gather some general feed back from them and emails, but they must also have other resources that we never know about that influences the changes they make.

I don't really feel that looking at a db of info can really tell them what suggestions, feedback, changes, etc. the game needs. Raw data can be interpreted any way you'd like... majority of players can be using one weapon because it's:
a) good
b) overpowered
c) easy to get
d) cool looking
e) you get the point....

Raw data has uses but really the only way to know what needs to be changed is either experiencing it or listening to others. If they have other means of gathering that data they've never let the players know. So I am going to go with the assumption that no, they don't.

I find it interesting that people are going back and forth about "the minority" and "the majority" and talking about communications with Anet. To me I think the bigger point is that Anet destroyed the depth of their game, and don't seem to have any intentions of going back.

Agreed, Dreamwind.

I believe that can be sorted out by something noticable by everyone who logs in.

Anyway, back to the topic and off these strawmen...

totally disagree,
only because people can be count in large numbers doesn't mean thay are masses, they are individual human beings and they know fairly well what's good for them and definietly know it better then self-proclaimed represnetatives.
Thinking that people who don't use guru to voice their opinions just don't care about the game or are childs that need to be guided is nothing more then just being conceited.

I guess you forget that every one of those 300 representatives had to be VOTED into that position by those 35 million people. Even more in the US and I didn't see any voting polls that said the people who spat on Guru or the other websites were VOTED in by their peers. lol You are each little representations of YOURSELF and that is all, nobody voted you into ANY position to tell Anet what they should do with the game.

Exactly QFT again.

Prove it which you can't so your statement is just as biased as the next person and the next person who throws out any STATISTIC related to the game. All anyone can do is speak INDIVIDUALLY for themselves unless you can prove your statements with documents or official statements from NCsoft or Anet which you can't. I can't either and I've proven MY POINT saying EVERYONE and EVERYBODY and ALL THESE and MAJORITY is baseless and cannot be proven. So, everytime someone else does it I'm going to do it on the opposite side of the fence just to show there is no base for statistics and numerical values for the community that wants this or that except that there IS a silent majority that cannot be denied and that's the pudding that Anet is catering and mixing stuff up for.

One last point I will make is that there's been people (lots of them have no figures) that have whinned and cried and boo hooed for 7 playable heroes, stopping the running past content to Droks, an auction trading house system and even more storage or guild storage and you haven't seen Anet cater to those whinners, so, why do you keep saying Anet caters to the whinning crowd with this? This is no different than the others. Anet picks what is important to change for their reasons and their income not because a bunch of people whinned.

I wil get back to the OP...great post

/signed

I would like to question why Regina took the time to post? She really didnt say anything. From what I read she gave a typical non-answer that a lot of Customer Relations give.

Also Why even mention GW2 and providing more in the future, why not now? A year ago we knew almost as much about GW2 as we do now. So how about some updates on that. Throw the community a bone, answer some of our question and not by tap dancing around them.

Just curious: has anyone done a poll on here about this? Is there, in fact, a measure of how many love Ursan, hate it, could care less? Short of having to read thru entire posts, which often devolve into something other than the OP's point/issue - wouldn't simply pointing to a poll end the matter?

"See? 60% of those polled love GW in its current state!"
or
"80% feel ANet went in entirely the wrong direction with PvE skills and EotN class-less system!"

If not, how do you start one?

Guru users more or less do represent the players with the useful feedback and important knowledge about all specific issues. Not because these players "asked" or "voted" for representation, but because they are the forum posters. When people actually care about their opinions on important matters, they find a medium to convey them.

The so-called 'silent masses' will find a voice if a need arises, but before then no one should speak for them or try to use them to push policy in any direction. Automatically lumping them in strong favor with the status quo is just as bad.

Fine, I will go historical to get my point across.


The Athenians of ancient Greece were some of the pioneers of the political system we use, called democracy. In Athens, every male citizen was allowed to participate and vote in the assembly. It was these assemblies that passed laws and made the decisions.

In case you don't believe me

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy

It was here, with no restrictions on who could participate that the decisions were made. I will concede that not every GW player posts on Guru, it would be ludicrous to think so. I believe that the users of Guru are like the men of this assembly. They show up, they argue on behalf of themselves and others, and then go home. Those who do not use guru, I think of as the other people of Athens, though in this case, those non-guru users can choose to join if they like The men (users) are not chosen, they simply show up, and it is their input that is taken as the view of Athens as a whole.

Guru (and other fansites) are the best form of representation available at this point. Why does it kill you to think otherwise?

/signed

Great post and I agree wit the OP in GW.

I miss the good old days...

Many recent events have pretty much screwed the game.....

<--3 year old veteran

I don't play GW anymore, but I quit for pretty much what Avarre pointed out. It was (or rather became) too shallow. I was never a hardcore player, but I always wanted to try out competitive PvP. Unfortunately that never happened, as by the time I was ready for it after about 2 years of playing, it was already dried up. (I started May 2005, a month after release)

I had done PvP before, enough to know that Competition Arenas (old RA for those who don't know) used to have around 70 full districts on an average weekday. RA gets 4 or 5 half-full districts at the most on a weekend nowadays? I knew the Rift Wardens and Hellfire Mages in the first round of Tombs, and I knew the 6 team battle royales that came early on in maps like Scarred Earth and Burial Grounds. I also knew Guild Wars before Faction even existed (the Balthzar PvP kind), and before Celestial Sigils were less than 70k.

Maybe the most memorable thing about Guild Wars was getting the game (Prophecies, to defile it) and reading over the manual at least 4 times, starting a game in pre-searing Ascalon wondering what its post-apocalyptic version would look like and also looking at the signposts in PvP arenas wondering what the hell "Lion's Arch" and "Droknar's Forge" were and why I couldn't get past a portal without a error dialogue telling me PvP characters could not do just that.

A plea, Anet. Make a game that makes me feel like that again. I'll buy the collector's edition the day it comes out. RETURN-TO-THE-ROOTS!!!

I really don't think Anet doesn't know at ALL what its doing but more I think that they don't want to bother with Guild Wars 1 when they can resurrect it with Guild Wars 2.

This is a very silly argument: The Athenian's culture was taught and raised upon this idea. Every man was taught that this was how things were done. You would have a valid point if there was a message that either popped up in the game for every player or was posted on the log in page that stated "Go to Guildwarsguru.com/forum to vote and decide on game changes". If you stood in a couple of the major city districts (foreign as well as US) and asked what Guildwarsguru was probably alot wouldn't even know. So you can't say that forum members on this site represent the majority of players in GW.

As to the OP - I have read every post in this thread and I can see WHERE you are coming from. I can see why you are disappointed in where the game has gone. I can also understand why you would like some answers to some very basic issues. I also believe that Anet should state in which direction they are heading and why. Also why they decided to change their initial vision to what GW has now become. I played DAOC for a long time until they did some of the same things that GW has done lately (imo dumbed down the game and made it far easier for the average player).

But I can also see that Anet is a business and in saying that they HAVE to cater to the will of their customers or they go out of business. In my opinion, they decided that drawing in new people was more important than striving to maintain their original vision.

GW is now 3 years old and was bound to change. Now it is in its final stages (imo) and Anet is trying to maintain the interest until GW2 comes out. Maybe they think the only way to do this is to provide all these overpowerful pve skills, titles and such. Maybe they thought that if they kept on doing what they were originally doing that most people would get bored and leave, and the only players left would be the hardcore players that the game values ment so much too.

I don't know and neither does anyone else on this forum UNTIL Anet comes forward and explains themselves. So yes I do see a reason for the original post and I see a reason that Anet should respond.

That is the whole reason behind this massive issue, not whether you or I agree on if the changes were good or bad but on why their vision changed.

Wow this thread grew so quickly from two days...my god... Also i would like to commend the OP, i truly believe that you are correct in almost everything you said.

Ask Avarre first..... Maybe he'll create one wit u i think....

/signed

Anet <3's false positives

I am not talking about that. BTW: "Don´t be afraid about slow changes, be afraid of no change at all!"

And I think the changes are good, and that the players just got better at playing the game and now get bored. That is the point where an intelligent person would go play something else and the addicted cry to the producer.

GW1 is going down. It has to, to make space for gw2. And while it is doing that it is transforming into a different game for different players: unexperienced paying customers get what they want, easy progress. It is sad but anet has to make a living somewhere between gw1 and gw2.

That's funny...since when does pulling data out of a system equate to opinions? You do realize that simply because someone uses something doesn't necessarily mean that they are wholeheartedly in favor of keeping it in the game, right?

For example, some of my characters use inscribable weapons. Does that mean I'm wholeheartedly in favor of the inscription system?

So, again, your premise that "the majority of players like overpowered skills" is unsubstantiated.

just go to any elite area and look for yourself ... lol no need data.

Doesn't really count, since most of the people who do not like/use ursan, do elite areas with guild mate(s) or friends, and therefore don't talk in chat. 8)

Don't really need a poll to know that most will like Ursan and all the buffs. This is after all, PvE.

I had an idea a while ago about how to get more useful feedback out of this forum.

The basic issue is that people who dislike a game element complain a lot more than the people who like that thing voice support.

There are literally hundreds of examples. When the BMP came out, those who didn't qualify complained endlessly. A lot fewer supported the promotion. Then Anet made the BMP available via the store. The original complainers went silent only to be replaced by a fresh crop of complainers saying THAT decision was wrong. From the perspective of the forum, Anet was wrong to only offer the promotion to for a limited time, and later they were wrong to offer it for an extended time.

This bias extends to Guru polls. Participation is self-determined. People with strong views are more likely to participate, and those opposed to a design feature typically have stronger feelings than those who are for it. Human nature means the forum community will, on balance, appear opposed to most changes that come along.

What could help are polls that address many issues at the same time. A forum member might be motivated by one question he is really against, but is likely to give balanced views on other issues. With enough varied topics at the same time, you would theoretically get a good take on things.

As it is, Guru is not a bad place to take the "temperature" of the community - as long as you discount it by 20 or so degrees.

People with criticism are one of two groups who are louder. The other group is ones who really like the game or are extremely "loyal" to a game. These people are just as loud as critics. Most review sites have really high reviews and really low reviews. the mean is the rare comment.

The people you don't find on forums are the ones who go meh and don't care about the game anymore, or ones who aren't extremely into the game but are still playing.

Are you saying that PvE skills and the implementation of grind are what kept ANet in business? The game was growing before then, and the game has grown for other reasons.

How many players looked on the internet and thought 'oh my god PvE-only skills, I have to buy this game now!!'? You can replace the PvE skill example with a lot of other stuff that has been done since Factions.

On the flipside, how many saw what was being done and left, not spending further money on expansions or helping to market the game?

If during the period of Prophecies to now, ANet had say, 20% less sales overall, but their game was stable enough to be popular 10 years down the line, they'd come out on top. If there's anything ANet could take away from Blizzard, it's that if you make a good game that can last, you can keep profiting years down the line. For a game that relies on initial sales rather than subscriptions, and hence doesn't need to bend over for the community and make changes to keep subscribers, that kind of design goal fits Guild Wars very well.

There are a lot of changes ANet could have made to encourage new players to join into the competitive aspect, which had the most longevity in theory, and was the most unique and marketable aspect. Ideas have been thrown out by the community for a long time. Changing the overall gameplay was not necessary.

guru is a forum made by farmers for farmers.hardly representitive of the playerbase.

A few weeks ago, I just got so annoyed with Anet's neglect of GW1, that I sent an email, saying in 200 words roughly what you've said here.

Basically, we are the "fans", we bought this game, we respect that you're focussing on GW2, but don't lose us in the mean time. Now that there will be no more expansions to GW1, fix it up, please.

Would I advice someone to buy GW right now?
I still would, GW from PvE perspective still has a very good value for money, specially when you consider that Proph and Factions can be found relatively cheap. Not sure on NF and EotN but even then the amount of time you can spend playing the game is very good. Even without title grind.
I'm not sure on the PvP side, it might be better to look for other games but I am not familiar with those.
Don't look at what the game used to be, look at what it still has to offer.
Not from the veteran point of view but from the starter.

The additional value from PvE skills is for the more experienced players.
It's not that hard to get a decent Sunspear/LB/Asuran/whatever rank to make the PvE skills usefull.
And those skills exist because of some design problems in GW.
PvE and PvP became too seperate in the way they function, leading to situations where a skill could be overpowered in PvP and when nerfed not being of any value anymore in PvE.
I can see why A-net tried to solve this with PvE skills.

From my point of view, it's title grind that made the game less attractive.
Because it makes people play more for achievement and less for fun.
I can enter an area and die on the last mob and laugh about it when I was in a fun team. Others will rant about the time they lost. Because they could have spend that time on something else. Every minute they don't progess in title they have to catch up somewhere else.

Also, the individual titles made a lot of people focus on one character.
That's ok but also restricting the available options to make a team.
I can imagine that I ask for a FoW run and 7 warriors show up because they all need that area on their warrior. Not willing to change to another profession, so in the end it will probably be less humans and some heroes in the team.
I would rather be able to instantly roll a PvP-like character to play some area and not getting a title benefit but being able to play for fun while testing new team builds.

While title grind does keep people going I think it would have been better to keep players involved in the game in other ways.
The base game concept is good enough and involvement should have been build around that.

We ain't livin in Athenian times bud, this is NOW, present America, Canada what have you. It don't work like that no more. Standing on a soapbox does not make ANYONE a representative of the whole and that's all anyone here is doing is standing on their OWN soapboxes and nobody elected them officials of anything. Best learn your politics and voting LAWS bud. Sorry, but, a forum doesn't make anyone a political or elected authority. A forum is nothing more than a soapbox or sounding board. It's certainly not a representation of the PEOPLE for the PEOPLE and by the PEOPLE since nobody is elected here.

Well if you ask me, the more "Casual" player will be playing and will take anything that happens. Nerfs, buffs, whatever -- they are not bothered about it and will simply abuse things where they have the chance. Why else wouldn't they voice their opinion?

They allow the minority to decide, because they do not voice their opinion on said subject and prefer to just play and accept these changes. If they were really bothered, they would most probably voice their opinion on the subject via a community meetup, such as forums.

The fact that the game has gone downhill doesn't pursue the "Casual" player at all. Want proof? They aren't voicing their opinions.

We represent wanting to keep the game intact. The majority wouldn't be affected by this, since we both agree that the majority doesn't care.

The majority doesn't care, doesn't know. These skills were not aimed at the "casual" or the majority. They were all aimed at a minority of whining players who want everything handed to them.

And I agree: On a basic level, Guild Wars provides a lot of fun. It's why I recommend it (plus all the campaigns + GWEN are dirt cheap). But it no longer has the depth it used to, and that's what's disappointing.

It's not "our skills" that made the game easier...

Well to be in fact its the casual players who really don't care about the updates....
And truth to be said....... everything is getting handed on a silver platter...

Are you saying that after 3 years of playing the game doesn´t turn into something really easy? You know exactly when to do what etc., it is naturally that doing something, almost exclusively, for 3 years will make you feel burned out.

It doesn't turn easy, but you already know how to overcome the challenge because you're experienced in that field.

Same difficulty, better you.