An Open Letter to Regina

Before I start I'd like to say that I do NOT want people posting flames in this thread. Anything that could be regarded as a flame or a troll I'm hoping that a mod will delete immediately. As all the other threads were closed however I though it was important to let people have their say on how CR is progressing and our feeling on the way it currently stands. I understand why the others were closed and hopefully people will be mature enough to remain civil and mature to keep this thread open so our voices can be heard.

***

Dear Regina,

While I understand coming into a Community Relations position so far into the life of a game can be challenging many of us in the community feel we, and the game would be better served with some changes in your approach to the position.

Many of us feel that there is not enough communication with the actual community. We are aware that your position includes other tasks as well however we as a community are your player base and I, as many others, feel that there should be some effort on your part to communicate with us.

The wiki talk pages and journals are a valid part of communication however they do not promote discussion, which naturally makes a lot of the community feel out of the loop. Lately i have been noticing a lot of 'doom and gloom' threads popping up about the game in general, and I believe this is partly to do with your general silence to the community as a whole, which frankly makes us feel a little abandoned, especially since we are so used to the way the former CR Gaile Grey took to her task.

Understandably you want to find your own way in the company without having to copy cat Gaile (and many of us - I am in this party - were glad to have a new face and a new approach to the position) however while many of Gaile's approaches did not mesh perfectly whith a great deal of the community she did make herself available and discussed with us. Personally I appreciate your straight forward approach. You don't tip toe around issues or give us false information, however even if there is no information to give I think it would be appreciated by everyone here if you at least made your presence felt, or at least posted only so that we knew our concerns were actually heard. At the moment we do feel a little ignored.

If there is any way you could take some time, not every day, not even every week if you can't, but just occassionally to come to forums (and by this I don't just mean guru) and make your presence felt I know we would all appreciate it. Currently we as a community do feel somewhat abandoned, and I know a few words from you would help alleviate our concerns.

Kind Regards,

-pamelf

***

I would like to invite others to add their two cents to this letter, just please, keep it civil. Feel free to disagree with me, or add your own CR improvement ideas.

Did you post a link to this thread on her talk page?

who the F is Regina?

I joke I joke

Grey really did get involved however ive seen a few of her posts lying around but yea where art thou?



Note to Op: ya could have PM'd her Doi! she may not even read this! Another thing her talk page no?

i think the reason why she is never here or on any forum is unfortunately found on her own personal blog. apparently folks attacked her personal life and beliefs and she was highly offended.

personally i havent seen any of what she mentioned written here on guru. most folks complaints about Regina isnt who she is, but rather her lack of interaction with the community, which is supposed to be her job.

(i dont expect this topic will remain lock free for too long)

I didn't even bother to read this pile of rubbish when I saw the title "An Open Letter to".

But it has "An open letter to" in the title! Everyone knows anet reads letters if they say that!

I disagree with the "no appearance" from Regina.
I am a part of PSC, and she has posted on there a few times. She answered a question on why Pre doesn't have a helm collector. She spent the time asking the developers why - something she didn't have to do.

She may not stop on here because she gets the same offensive feeling from here as she does on her blog. We all know that there are some people on here that just love to run their mouth with a slight hope it upsets someone.

Regina, I, personally, think you are doing a good job.
You could talk to us a little more in-game in places other than Pre, though.

They're still doing better than most other games I've played.......

Bottom line, Regina needs to post news on the forum.

Examples of information lost in wiki-land..

- Tormented Weapons being added to the Hom - Officially announced on the website atleast a week after she mentioned it on her wiki page. It was also posted here on the forum some days after her post.

- Lack of GW 2 info at Pax or GDC - On the wiki, not on the website. Of course posting that there wont really be any info at an upcoming event on the website would be incredibly stupid.

On top of news, her journal posts would be nice here as well. It would give more folks a chance to respond. Unfortunately, it looks like Izzy may be gearing up/reformatting his userpage on the wiki to follow Regina's format. They're trying to use the wiki as a blog and that's not what its intended purpose is. I doubt Anet has the funds or time to expend into making a formal blog. So if they're going to create such "blogs" then the blog posts should be on the wiki and forum. It gives folks a greater chance to respond and we don't have to go on a daily hunt to find them all.

Personally, I could care less if she got involved with the everyday whining threads about ursan, the economy, sf, and balance. We know that the game designers are looking into some of these things since we have dev notes now. They may not be doing a good job, but there's not much Regina can say other than "They're still looking into things." or "We're aware you're unhappy with so-and-so."

hopefully a mod can merge this...
I felt my post was a bit too negative, so I decided to respond to this as well. She's been there for me when I had a question about something in the game. She is there for you to talk to if you need her. Its just sometimes she isn't good at relaying big information to crowds. Something she'll hopefully remedy in the future. Overall though, she's doing an okay job in my book.

People shittalking on the internets is no excuse to reduce the quality of her job; if I was a high-up at ANet and still cared about this game, I'd reprimand her about it. In no way should people attack her personal life like that, but I'm convinced that if you're expected to work with online communities you should be prepared to put up a very tough shield.

And that is not even mentioning the lack of interaction with the PvP community.

Regina,

You may say we can go to your wiki page or whatever the hell it is if we have a concern but rememebr it is your job to visit fan sites. We shouldn't have to go ahead and reach out to your talk page and ask for something. What I suggest is that you just please do what you are paid to do and reach out to the community please.

I was very excited to have a new person in the position but so far I am very disappointed.

I feel Regina is doing a great job, with respect to how much new information she is allowed to share, and how much more direct and less fluffy she is compared to Gaile.

I really don't think it would be efficient if she were to spend some time on forums, feeding trolls and trying to reason why some people feel some way against some things (for example, there are still handfuls of people who think solo farming should be removed, and Zaishen keys/drunkard/sweettooth/party items should be customized, so people can't buy/sell them).

Honestly, Gaile only had to say what new news the developers had for her, and now that development has shifted mostly to GW2, there is simply less news to share. There is nothing that Regina can do that she isn't already doing.

yes, she could and sould talk to us more. She's paid for that! Her job is community relations manager and that community are we Guru as elite GW forum should see her more often as biggest ammount of folks are here (right?). I know it's probably hard to watch ppl saying bad things about you, but you're paid for that - and it's just internet Ignore bad postats and add replies in threads that "require" your posting Regina.

tbh, i wouldnt be surprised if she doesnt post on this forum, cos everytime gaile, or regina posted, there was allways some c**t waiting to flame and attack them personally. so i wouldnt be surprised if it put her off visiting this site. But she does need to interact with the community more through other forums, her talk page and in-game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skye Marin I feel Regina is doing a great job, with respect to how much new information she is allowed to share, and how much more direct and less fluffy she is compared to Gaile.

This is, essentially, my sentiment as well. GG talked far too much about a lot of things she really didn't understand. Regina doesn't talk as much at all, and while more interaction would certainly be welcome, it's nice to not have to trudge around through the seas of "Well the CR said this would..." and "The CR said this wasn't...". With the current state of the game, and the communities based upon it, I feel Regina is doing fine. Again, more community interaction would be good, but personally, I really don't see the need for it anymore. It is, at this point, for all intents and purposes, a dead horse that does not need to be beaten any longer. "Yes", "No", "GW2" is the new standard, and frankly, I think that it's working just as well as anything else would at this point.

<Insert obligatory Faer crack about all but two staff members working on GW2 here>

She obviously offended by the MANY rude comments on this forum. If the mods started doing their jobs and banning anyone that says "Regina's a dirty scumbag prick" instead of quoting it with "fo sho!" than maybe she'd visit more. Every time she comes, the following 20 posts are "HOLY SHIT REGINA POSTED LOL U SUCK U NEVER POST WTB: NEW CM ONE THATS NOT RETARDED!1!1!!!!!". So be nice, ok?

I don't know which is more demanding job: being a terrorist-negotiator or being a community relations manager for this forum.

Just face the facts already, people. This game isn't going to get big updates anymore. Focus has been shifted for GW2. You think that because you paid 150 bucks for 3 games gives you right to show you faces around here demanding changes to game, but it doesn't work like that. As long as you aren't buying, they're not developing new content. Do you need Regina here to tell you that? This forum is nothing but venting channel for disaffected people. Dozens of topics about same subjects getting hundreds of replies with identical messages.

I find it funny some of you think that a minority being rude justifies a Community Relations representative not communicating on the number 1 fansite/forum site. However, personally I don't care though whether she does her job or not, or how you feel about her doing her job.

I vote for the latter

But srsly this is the 'main' gw community and yea im suprised how 'quite' she has been

I don't get it.

Were you people not held as children? Raised on the bottle with no breastfeeding? Struggling with deep-rooted abandonment issues? Unable to make or keep lasting real-life personal relationships? Doubling up on meds perhaps?

Gaile went far beyond her responsibilities and made the mistake of getting too personal/involved with a very emotionally unstable community while being incapable of helping another. I believe that was a major reason why she had to step back like she did.

I don't doubt that the new CR was made aware of her replacement's previous personal hell and advised to keep that in mind. Regina has a different style but thankfully delivers useful information when available without packaging it inside endless drivel. For that alone she gets my vote.

Simplified translation: Regina is not your babysitter. Get over it.

I feel a large number of folks here don't understand it's okay to spend 1000 hours on a $50 game, and then move on to other games while the sequel is being developed.

let me bust out the noise makers and party poppers, *big rachety noise making thing a ma-bob thats like a paddle on a stick that makes clicky noises*

This Thread Has Become Like Every Othe Thread About The New Crm

I tip my hat to you pamelf for the generally good intent that this posting was put together and meant to be but, guru people are too damned immature to respect this prospect, because every post they see as a attack on them, or as another reason to whine/b*tch/ and or moan, this thread is already evolving into a mindless repetition of what has already been said a million times over and into a fest of great big QFT
QFT!!111oneoneone

and an epic big friggin mess of +1+1+1+1

cause we all know kids, the bigger your post count is, the more endowed you are.


Overall general good intent, but the problem with open letters that others can post on is, well, it' becomes ignorant.

Perfectly true, only providing more reason for RB not to post here; any crucial information can only be found by sifting through all the shite. I am personally glad that I can find most important information in one place.

Regina, I think you're doing fine!

She's currently getting paid to F5 her wiki talk page all day.

I know people who are perfectly willing to do that for free (mostly very vain though).

Fanboy alert, everyone in the shelter!!

Agree with the letter, she is paid to be community manager, she's not doing it for free. When I go to a private doc, I expect that I will be treated better than in the hospital (crazy Polish system, where people trust only private clinics) and IRL I get it. Regina posted... how many times? 50 posts, WOW. In the last almost-four-months. Who cares what's on her wiki? She can put there recepies for new banana split muffins for all I care. I dunno, maybe she is paid too little to be bothered with some (cough elite cough) fansite?

It takes no money and very little time to set up a proper, professional blog. Regina perfectly knows that as she owns one, but as someone says she may have been put off by nasty comments. While I condone the people that make nasty comments to her and push her into each and every corner they can (and I don't agree with all she says), it's about the official job of "community management". I'm not her boss to say what it is, I can only speak from my own point of view as a GW player, member of the community and Anet customer. The new CR/M policy makes me think that there's less and less value in participating to GWG (but reading it is of value), a lot of the interesting people have stopped posting here, and I'm more and more turning into the mode "play the game, put it aside for a while" and that's it.

And I hate when wiki is used to discuss or blog, it's messy and inefficient (have to use Ctrl+F all the time, it's a big wall of text). Wiki is perfect for collecting info, and precise discussions. Not for journals or general discussions. But who cares now?

Only seeing "whining" would be a terrible mistake, which I think she's not doing. On the other hand, one can ask how much content from fansites turn into concrete stuff. Is the Sardelac forum worth the time spend on it now? (yes if things end up in GW2)

I believe it's a "he", Linsey is the only dev left in GW1 if I'm not mistaken. (nice photoshoped combination of armors on his Ele in the picture)

Some (many?) people believe that's part of the job of CR/M, I'm not sure Anet and Regina do.

Good for you. I PM'd her on GWG and in-game about the fact that the link from the main GW webpage to the page where you can download the client was broken. Never got any response whatsoever. It's been fixed though. Gaile always answered to my posts, even if it wasn't a long message. Was I spoilt? I don't know, but now I don't feel like communicating information anymore. (I'm not even sure I'd be heard)

I'm even questioning what I'm doing writing this on GWG. One less drop of water in the ocean? Probably time to take a break and patiently ponder on the meaning of life. Or join the group of The Deep and Silent Ones. (I can already hear the shouts of "good ridance" from some people here...)

Always-the-same-excuse alert! Put-all-the-people-in-the-same-bag alert! You're getting annoying (and boring) you know...

This is exactly the type of attack that will imply that CR/M will spend less and less time on GWG. Because of these personal attacks that are uterly worthless. And once it's written, the harm is done and the flamefest can start...

Hit it on the head. They have all our money. They forced EotN on those that didn't want it (Ursan or no elite for you, letting proph/fact/NF rares get overfarmed, thus driving up price of EotN rares). Now they are going to starve us for a new GW game, one that is exponentially better than this one because it's not as horridly broken as this one. Don't you guys see? Anet broke the game on purpose. They've gotten all the sales out of Guild Wars, they'll break this one so it's never fun to play anymore. But you know what will be fun? Guild Wars 2, we should all go out and spend our money on that.


Guild wars is great because it's free. This is the other side of that.

GW is not horribly broken. Otherwise i would have moved on.

Wut ur tlkng bout.

Probably THAT'S why I had to pay for it over $250.

Ur not playing pve, r u.

I play pve all the time actually. With my nice guild that actually tolerates creativity and doesn' t demand Norn R10 for everything.

The solution to most problems in GW is in the guilds, not Anet.

*guilty as charged*

theres obviously other things regina has to do not just visit us. she doesn't have to give us information about new updates especially as they could change there mind and then there would be a flamefest on the forums saying she lied

i read her blog, and do understand how one can get angry at what she describe about people commenting one her personal life and getting attack by weird/psychotic << my words, cos they seem like that, parents blah blah blah blah blah .... and speculating about her ah-ham, other real life stuffs. (lets not bring it here)

but , those rotten apples that says those bad things about her are not the "GW community as a whole" and like Regina commented herself in her blog, leave her personal life out of this, and when i say that I mean the community as well as Regina herself should have to let business be business and personal life be personal life. Otherwise you cannot stay long in this, because stupid people are a-lurking on forums all over the world. Do your job, make good communitcations with your "subject - that is the good GW community" do not let some stupid comments ruin your career or your life and happiness, it is not worth it. actually.


Thats not a good excuse, there is a guildwars.com, and then there's a guild wars official wiki.

keep the guild wars wiki, make the guildwars.com into a .com + forum. tell me what good is guildwars.com?? besides selling stuffs. funds to maintain that site could be use to make that into a forums/blog.

The best place to make announcement is actually the log in page :P make use of it Arena Net.

If she could just make one post a day here, I'd feel she was actually doing what she's paid for. We all understand that Guild Wars is at the end of its cycle and GW2 is still top secret so there isn't as much to talk about, but as CRM she should still be responding to player issues and concerns.

As for regie being "offended" by people like abadeus (on the mildly annoying end of the spectrum) or like that other idiot in the "Game client hack" thread (posts deleted) well....why is she bothered by these kids who can barely string a cohesive sentence together (often not even that) who clearly dont know what they are talking about and contradict themselves constantly?

The vast majority of people dont give a damn about your personal life regie dear, and if we DID i dont see why YOU should give a damn.

do your job, do it well and screw the personal attacks.

as a side note ive noticed a HUGE improvement since the criticisms started on GWG, of course it could be better, your bedside manner is non existent but hey....better than nothing.

Linsey is a she actually (it says it on her front page man! Spearwoman. :P), and this is correct, but technically incorrect. While there is only one developer, this matters very little. There is a programmer dedicated to GW1 as well, plus the work of tons of other people still at Anet - just they are also working on GW2 as well.

No, GW being free doesn't affect the quality of the game. Try again.

You know, shit even for free is shit.

Just because this is an open letter, does not mean that you guys can post 1 line spam posts, and expect to go unnoticed, or even get the thread locked. This is a valid discussion, because yes, Regina is doing a very poor job.

If you want to post stupidity, go try Off-Topic. Or maybe go somewhere else. There's no place for garbage in a thread like this.

My point of view, which comes from someone who's played since June 05 regularly and stalked this forum posting infrequently, is that Gaile was better. Not in the sense that we learnt a great deal from her, or that she was able to deliver many of the things suggested. She was better in the sense that she was involved. She would talk about her favourite pet, or armour. She would get involved in random topics. It gave the impression that there were people at anet who would happily play along with the people that paid for the game.

Now the point made that Gaile had more info for us because go back a few years there were expansions and new chapters coming out is a good one. Regina doesn't have anything new to tell us in the respect of Guildwars. That’s fine, but we have all known for a while about GW2. What would be nice would be a CR that took part in the discussions, even if were not finding out fantastic information. It will still be something to keep our interests going. Or better yet give the community, whether rightly or wrongly the impression that they might be having some input to the creation of GW2.

It just seems that all we do on this forum now is moan. Sarcasm is running at such a dangerously high level that you don’t have a masters degree in wit you’re going to be offended. If Regina doesn’t want to talk to the community because of hurtful comments she shouldn’t be the CR. Sorry to be so blunt. If she’s happy to write on wiki, then let that be her job. But give someone with the ability to tackle the fickle mob the position. Preferably someone who is fluent in wit, sarcasm, snide, cynicism and facetiousness and not just a punching bag.

So now we are BEGGING her to do her job?
What's next?
A cookie for every post she makes?


You know what?
It's perfectly fine to say that GW has shitty CR. And the people (new OR existing customers!) that look for good CR when it comes to a game should look elsewhere.
Let's start growing that spine, shall we?