Are Community Relations Dead in GW1?

Gaile returned the attitude she was given depending on the player. This is the self imposed mantra of Riverside. We constantly tout how thick skin is needed here. It's just the interwebz afterall. Half of us aim to rip apart the other in a literary assault. Around here, each of us give back what we're given. Gaile was no different. If certain players acted oblivious and stupid then she treated you as such. She took the Riverside mantra and threw it back in our faces when it was needed. Martin can be the same way. Welcome to the Riverside we created.

Community relations is a two way street. We ask them to speak up more and when they do the typical retort is that the message is worthless and unimportant. So they go back to limited information and then we bitch again about how "CR" is dead.


Then the question becomes where is your line drawn between voicing an opinion that differs from yours and trolling? In recent times, the term "troll" has been used far too often, especially around here, to describe people who simply had a decenting view.

Those employed to Community Relations should have no power, none whatsoever, in holding the ability to ban. Your job would be to listen, note, and consider the message from your community. All the good and all the bad. If you hold power to control the message, the job serves no purpose to you, or those above you. It would be a conflict of interest and often is on other official forums where CR's, or GM's, who are in positions to control information, use the power to do just that.

Maybe thats because the people want new content now they have been everywere. And no not GW2 promotion that gives 1 hour play a week and a bounty to keep you busy a few min a day. Or a collector for items that you can get 5 a week wich will keep you busy for an hour if you even care to farm the items yourself. No not some quest to redo missions you have already done to get a single item thats new to the game (equipment pack). But real new content with new skills, weapons (not green or trades from a collector) but normal drops, new proffesions etc. And if you look at the release dates from prophics, faction, NF and EoTN and the time between the release from EoTN till now the gap is simply to big. Even with GW2 in the make they should have put some people at work or maybe hire some new people to create new GW1 campaign. There are still big numbers that simply want to play GW1 so there is enough money to earn just look at how many costumes that you saw in the game when they came out. People still want it.

I see ANet folks cruising through our forums pretty much every single day. They do their best to keep up with things in GW1 even as they are moving forward with GW2. They cannot however constantly be commenting on what thousands of people are chatting about. Regina and Martin have posted when hot topics pop up here, but both are really busy now with the summer conferences. In addition, they are also in a stage of transition within their staff, which I would expect also to affect their time and posting.

All that said - what would you want them to post and comment about? How frequently should they be posting to keep you happy? We keep things pretty open here, but as a result I know all the negativity that tends to follow probably discourages them from posting much as it just leads to a ton more work for them when they have to respond even more.

Not really. Take a job in any service industry that requires customer interaction, then complain to your boss that customers are being mean to you or allow your boss to hear you slamming a customer while the customer is present. Not a two way street.
Customers don't typically communicate with a service provider unless there is something wrong with the service, that's just the way it is. My guess would that if the company is doing an all around great job, you don't want to disturb them from that.

That may come from the fact that the community often felt like Anet was only providing lip service to listening to the community.

So... They felt offended over the interweb so they decided to quit their day jobs. Hey, I love NCSoft CR guys. Aion has shitty people, GW has... dunno if it even has people. I think only City of X has it good.

Still, the only God damn thing OUR guys like Martin or Regina are supposed to do is talk to community and exchange informations between us and the devs. If not possible, talk to community again and, DEAR GOD I KNOW IT'S TERRIBLE, keep on doing that despite negative feedback.

Especially when you are getting negative feedback. It's easy to be nice to everyone around you and get paid for doing that when people are grateful. However, when you are slacking off, doing absolutely NOTHING, don't run crying back to your home because "daddy they aren't playing nice".

This basically wins the thread. They are active, just we don't notice it.

GW:B is basically a new campaign, but only a small team is making it.

Isn't that part of there job as CR to make us (the community) notice and informed? . Maybe we will hear them soon with something big but just as the massive ban with the 3.700 bans they could have ban a lot of people earlier but they had to wait making bots cause more dmg to the game in hope that the big nummer will impress us and make us satisfied for a few weeks. But in reallity those bots went on causing dmg. And now they might be working but keeping us in the dark to long, making more and more people giving up the hope for improvement.

If you mean GW2? Then no thats a new game not a new campaign. Or if it is possible the get your excisting character to GW2 and back to GW1 but that I think will never happen.

1. Even if you weren't around since day one, you must have noticed that ArenaNet's budget did not cover the dedicated manpower for an official forum. This is why guru and the other big forums grew so quickly and became the places to go for help and reaching ANet's ear.

2. Not only Gaile Gray but most of the employees had to spend some time each day reading the forums to keep track of game problems and legitimate complaints. None of them were required to make meaningless comments in threads.

3. Gaile Gray talked to the community at the average level of maturity she was experiencing which most of the time seemed to be about kindergarten. She did a great job in that position and is doing a great job now.

4. You don't need to ban people for stupid posts; ignoring them is sufficient punishment. None of the ArenaNet people need to complain to their bosses nor do they feel the need to "get even" as they are a little more mature and don't have the need to vent in public forums.

5. I realize that most of the posters in this thread are just trying to outdo each other in the descriptions of how badly the GW community reps are doing their jobs, but you are just making yourselves look ridiculous. If you were hoping that Regina, Martin or Stephane would pop in here to become a part of this whole hate fest, you need to reconsider your belief in their masochistic tendencies.

There aren't any rumors at all about WoW going free, it was mentioned by WoW's staff officially as something that may happen in the future. It currently isn't free.
I don't see anyone in this thread who hates Guild Wars.

what are the requirements exactly of cr? last time i checked it doesn't involve posting on fan forums, but it should involve 2-way communication (and not just lurking). whether or not that communication is via fanforums, i don't exactly see where else this communication should occur. i haven't seen any in-game cr since gaile gray and i don't bother to post on official wiki (although according to op, cr is also inactive over there).

imo i think the ultimate goal for cr is for the community to recognize and be familiar with the cr's identity. i don't think regina has even come close to making a name for herself as much as gaile has. also, if there are any other members for cr, i have no clue who they are.

1. Fair enough.
2. ok
3. Talking down to a community when a handful speak inappropriately, only encourages that behavior from the rest of the community.
4. I'm with you some of the way. I'm not sure where the get even part came from though. And, there has in fact been venting in public forums.
5.Kind of invalidates the rest of your post. A. Legit complaints are legit. B. Given the fact that many of these posts indicate that people believe customer relations to be dead, I doubt anyone expects customer service to make an appearance anywhere near the actual community.

?

Guild Wars: Beyond. A.K.A War in Kryta. That's the biggest content since EoTN, and it was done fairly well. That story had more heart in it then most of Guild Wars (I actually felt a little of what the characters felt). Another reason I'm going to buy GW2: the writers for ANet are good. If anyone says otherwise they are blinded by hate.

Right... So the person that made this forum is pomping in money? A forum is some easy scripting and they can use there servers for it wich will cost nothing. The PR people can be admins and review the activity on the forum once every working day and some fans with limited action such as post removal or any can moderate the forum.

To put it simple if they can't cover a few costs for a official forum they should hire a new bookkeeper.
Maybe comments with meaning to inform the public aswell atleast it was called public relations

Stupid posts uhh... Not all post irrelevent to your interest are stupid. There are more relative or question posts that make sense that should be answerd with 1 post by a PR employ but keep getting filled with more question, assumptions and false answers by others because there is no answer by a employ that we all know has the answer. And well support... Thats worth a other thread but also not a strong side.

Well there not really improving either in the last months tbh. And no don't expect them to pop up because well thats why there is this thread. It's a fact that there on GWG2 while it goes about GW1.



That's not a campaign but more like a mini story going on in original content. Without new area's, skills, monsters, towns, heroes, dungeons, weapon drops etc. A new campaign needs a whole stroy with missons and not half excisting toons giving skill dumped in a area for new content

And besides that a campaign must give you a feeling about a new story like Prophics is more western with humans against chars while Factions gives you more the asian feeling and the great battle between am fah jade kurzick and luxon while NF gives you more the feeling as landscape as maybe africa and the story between wealth and a demon kingdom. Thats why EoTN is a expention and not a campaign.

Is this to suggest that our CR's have slammed us in front of them, or complained to their bosses we're being mean? If so, do you have evidence of this?

And is this to suggest that because their red names aren't splattered across these forums they're slacking off?

http://forums.gwonline.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=399248 paraphrased: Imma take my ball and go home, you guys is mean.

Exactly what I was hoping for.

Yeah, we know the story. Basically what we had was an engaging CR, from in game chats to posting at length on here and being involved in person.

Yet at every turn she was dragged through the mud for it.

When she posted in length here, people complained she was talking too much. When she posted little, it was never enough.

When she had in game chats with the frog, people made fun of her for the Frog while forgetting what she was trying to do. Oh yes, I remember the comments well. Often hearing that she should be doing her "job" instead of hanging out with Frogs in the game. When she cut down on the chats, she was bitched about for not being around.

That woman could have cured Cancer and she still would have been yelled at for ignoring Diabetics.

There were countless times that Gaile should have kept quiet, but she wasn't that person. She wanted to keep us in the loop as much as possible, even through the mistakes and miscommunication. And in the end how did we show our thanks? We treated her like crap. No, not just being immature, or childish, but literally we treated her like she was dirt on our shoes, in the virtual world and the non. Even when she expressed to some that their behavior crossed lines, many still didn't care and carved her up even more. It became more than just customers expressing concerns to the service rep. It became a personal vendetta.

So now we want our current CR's to rebrand the Gaileway. We didn't learn from our history, but it seems Anet did. We didn't truly appreciate it then and there's no evidence we'd appreciate it now.

Nothing will ever satisfy this community.

When PvE is updated, the PvPers complain that they are ignored. When PvP is tweaked, PvE rants about time wasted on a niche group. When skill changes effect both parties, they wail about how they shouldn't suffer for the other side. When skills are split, they mutter about how the game is getting too disconnected.

When new content is spread out over time, people complain about having only a quick fix and nothing left for another week. When new content is added in a single chunk, people sweep through it with their uber builds and complain that it was too short. When there is no new content, everyone complains.

When skills are buffed, people complain about power creep. When skills are nerfed, people complain about Anet eliminating fun. When monsters are cut down to size, people complain about the game being dumbed down to newb levels. When areas are made tougher, people complain that Anet is catering to the PvX crowd and requiring cookie-cutter, perfect builds.

When titles are made more difficult, people complain about the overabundance of grind. When titles are made easier, people complain about how the "undeserving" are now getting their hard-won prestige and making them no longer have meaning.

When the developers don't post, people complain about a lack of developer response. When they do post, people pick over their messages piece by piece for anything they can contradict or disparage.


Are you surprised that a developer may not want to go to a community who's common response to anything is "the game is dead, why bother"?

Are you suggesting that your stance has changed and now you think that customer service is dead and not doing their jobs, but its not their fault? You asked for documentation you got it, let the discussion continue forward or get out of it. All you're doing is foot dragging.

Changed from what? I never stated that it was alive, or dead. Talk about foot dragging. Apparently I'm too cryptic in pointing out our past behavior as a reason for our apparent current situation. So let me be blunt:

What is it you want our CR's to do? If being enagaging like Gaile was bad & if being restrained like our current reps are bad, what should they be? What will make you happy and content? Anything? Nothing? Or do you prefer the opportunity to get some name jabs in without offering up solutions to this apparent problem that is a great and urgent issue?

Why the hell would anyone complain that she is talking too much?

I don't blame Regina & co. one little bit for not being as "hands on" as Gaile Gray was. I'm sure they got an earful about all the douche-baggery that she was constantly subjected to by immature pin-heads while she was the CR person.

Exhibit A: Guild named "Inside the__________ Gaile Gray" (you know the rest).

Exhibit B: Constant flaming her for breaking "promises" that were never promised by her or anyone else.

Exhibit C: Many of her visits to LA ID1 were laced with aforementioned pin-heads either flaming her, spamming questions at her, or making crude, disgusting comments. (Boy! Imagine if they had the ban-scythe back then!

The bottom line is, if people want a more visible presence of the CR team, treat the CR team with more civility when they do show up than what's been done in the past.

I would treat them with more civility if they actually gave a crap about GW1. They keep throwing up the "working on GW2" flag about everything while leaving PvP (esp. 4v4 arenas) to rot. PvP is totally imbalanced and they aren't doing a damn thing about it, (esp. in 4v4 arenas). I'm a 4v4 goon, and yet GvG is all they effect changes on; the changes are always in the form of a nerf, too. As a result, 4v4 suffers! I don't GvG/HA because of rank-discrimination/1337ism, and I have a feeling I'm not the only one that doesn't do GvG/HA for the same exact reasons. The day they actually give a flying shit about PvP/4v4 arenas and not just 8v8 is the day I give them credit where credit is due.

Stop crying! The fact is that it is their JOB to keep in contact with the player base, if you can't handle mad people don't go into CR but become an accountant.

They are not doing their JOB for which they are PAID.

That is the bottomline!

The thing is Gaile was not engaging, she was simply present. I believe the answer is simple, apparent and has been stated many times before. The expectation is to liaison between the devs and the community and actually express what the community wants. Failure to do that will cause the frustration that was endemic in the community before. When your job is to serve as the valve through which information flows, do just that. Misinformation and suppositions only poison the well. Take the time to get the right information and develop the understanding of what you're being told so that you can provide credible information to the community as well as the devs. When the community tells you time and time again about specific problems, relate those problems and express how strongly the community feels about those issues.

No tears here. Just throwing in my 2 cents.

That is true. But it's NOT their job to bend over and kiss the butts of the entitlementally challenged or put up with the garbage that GG did.
Where did I say anything about "mad" people? I beleive the adjectives I used were "immature" and "pin-head." The examples I gave were of "douche-baggery" for which there is no excuse.

That's for their boss to decide. Personally, I agree that they should have a more visible presence in the GW community. My other post was simply stating that I understand why they don't.

Wouldn't know what was the situation when Gaile was ingame. But during the last mursaat/mantlecon event at henge of deravi people were civilised while regina and linsey were there as much as people can be civilised in online game. Sure there was a sea of questions and silly comments but i don't remember anyone saying some kind of profanity (or flaming).

My problem with CR is the deliberate misinformation and outright lies when they don't want to tell us something that we clearly want to know.

(*cough* loot scaling *cough*)

Yes, PvP needs work. But the fact of the matter is: GW2 is way more important. I know it sucks if you don't want to get GW2, but the fanbase for GW2 gets bigger every day. Why would they want to pull people off GW2's crew and work on GW1 (permanently, sometimes they help temporally)? It would just upset many of the people who are anticipating GW2.

But, if you really want to play a better PvP system, just get GW2. That's where Anet is fixing all their GW1 mistakes, like it or not.

I would tend to agree, but with 4 CRs can't we get some better communication? I mean they're the "Community Relations" team, shouldn't they be....ya'know....relating to the community of GW1 as well?

To be fair, every German I talk to says Martin does an amazing job. Maybe, as English speaking players, we just don't his or Stephane's work.

I wouldn't put money on GW2's PvP being any good. Obviously, PvP is not really a focus for the game.

This is just a baited post and was bound to draw the usual responses from the usual people. It seems like the only people who have a problem with CR have a problem with anything else ANET may do.

I do agree they should communicate with GW1Guru. Because most of the people on GW2Guru have played/still play GW1.

Well, no one besides Anet knows what the PvP is like outside of; WvW, and apparently you can "hot-join" another PvP format, like a FPS.

I think part of the issue is that people expect different things from the CR team.

I do think we get more information in the current style(even if it's not always on here) baring in mind how little is going on now compared to 2005/06. But we have lost the sense that the devs are playing the game with us, that they are fully engaged with the general game population.

As a normal player I just don't get a feeling that the devs are playing the game(or even playing the same game as us) and it's a feeling I've had for sometime. Now I know for some they expect a certain detachment from the Devs and players and I can understand their point of view. However as a player who remembers the Gaile and the Frog I think GW has been a poorer experience since it ended. But as I said, I've felt the quality of information has been consistently good(account hacking scandal excepted).

What sort of CR do I want. I want good,timely, clear information AND a feeling that the developers are playing the game, joining in with events(both official and player) and experiencing the same issues as the rest of us. In a new MMO such as GW2 such an approach is IMHO essential.

thats where my earlier post in this thread applies, i feel the the timing was wrong for the division of GW1Guru/GW2Guru. they should of just kept the GW2 stuff as a sub forum here til we have a real release date. yeah im sure the CR team probably has a look over these forums but in the state of the game and these froums its pretty clear the activity is off bigtime.

as a player of perfectworld, i play that game when i need a break from GW, the PvP format there allows for joining in after a battle has started.

Thing is they say they're working on GW2 since end of 2008, and there was almost no serious update in pvp since that time. The same excuse came everytime. To crown it all , they even deleted some formats to bring some completly useless one.

So well , we can't know if it's made on purpose ( no update because they plan to delete arenas in future , for servor space maybe ..), but i highly doubt GW2 will be released soon ( maybe end of 2011 if lucky), and those formats( except GvG) will just get totally empty before that time..

Considerig War In Kryta, first statemet is a bit off: It really feels that whoever created it, did so with all intetions of playing through it.

Seccond part ... problem is that whe devs play friends with players, you are bound to get misinformation and unclear information because of conflictig interests: ("i want to be with players, want them to like me" vs. "i have to be gatekeeper of information"). ("playfull" Gaile, while having great event presence got too ... playfull, teasing and mysterious when asked simple questions to which aswers could as well be "we are not going to tell you that now" or "yes" or "no" instead of "tee-hee, that certaily is a possibility, isn't it" (something that infuriates people when they make serious business of some issue).

But this thread is a bit pointless: what exactly do you expect them to tell us? Because it seems that there is not much to tell us except that they are still alive and servers still plugged.

As I said, it's a personal feeling and while the WIK stuff is great, the subject and topic was about CR's participation in the game world.

I think people put too much onus on Gaile, without checking their expectations and I'll admit that at the time I also expected some huge revelation every time I saw that green or purple text on screen. We, often didn't distinguish between CR Gaile and player Gaile and part of that mix up was down to us.

What Anet then did was to remove pretty much the 'player' side of CR maybe because of the personalities now in that role but maybe it's because they couldn't guarantee or didn't want us the players to mix them up anymore. That was a perfectly understandable thing to do.

Now, part of this mix up was historical, as early on in the games life pretty much every Gaile or Frog visit did contain some amazing tidbit because the game was very much a work in progress, with whole teams behind it's development.

Once EOTN came out, the house was effectively built and all the exciting stuff like hey, 'next week we're putting a TV' in has gone and all that's left is 'we need to change the guttering'.

Exactly, see my above point. BUT and yes this belongs I guess in a GWuru2 thread what sort of CR we have now is probably the sort of CR we'll get then. My point is, is that in my view it would be a great shame(and missed opportunity) if the whole 'we're playing the game with you' aspect that helped make GW unique is not carried forward into GW2 as I think the game and community will be substantially poorer for it.

But, for this to work, we the playerbase need to do our part and acknowledge that sometimes the Devs/CR are there for fun and sometimes they are there to work

There is very little that would get deleted on an official forum that isn't deleted here.

Tying forum accounts to game accounts will go some of the way to keeping people in line, but it's really not a solid solution or a replacement for a healthy community. It still helps though, so I'll give you that.

What you don't mention is the amount of work involved in running an official forum. There are some 30-40 staff here on Guru, and the population has declined significantly. How many staff do you think we had back when Guild Wars was in its prime? How much do you think it would cost a company to hire and maintain a similar workforce?

ArenaNet could open a forum and try to run with a volunteer program, sure, though that would require them hiring another two or three full time community staff just to get it off the ground. Then there's the issue of responsibility: Every rookie moderator on the official forum would be a representative of ArenaNet, and there's huge potential for embarrassment when you dealing with dozens of volunteers with limited commitment or investment.

And that, my friend, is just one tiny facet of the arguments for and against games having official forums. It's a lot more complicated than 'they just should to help stop trolls'.

Indeed, and many MMOs with official forums also have large, well run fan forums - some of them even bigger than the official ones. For example: Aionsource has always been bigger than the official Aion forum, and WarhammerAlliance has always been bigger than the official Warhammer Online forum (though admittedly it had a head start).

Experienced fansite developers can provide a great service for free, and it boggles my mind when developers try to compete with them. For what? Control of the message? Unless you're straying into dangerous areas like censorship or manipulation any fansite owner will be entirely cooperative. Stability? Develop stronger relationships with the fansite owners/admins.

Aside from convention season preparations (which is a massive workload by itself) I imagine that the focus of the community team has shifted largely to Guild Wars 2. It's their next big leap, and they will be doing everything they can to ensure it is a resounding success. There are four of them, though only three are dedicated community managers, and two of those have a focus on other language groups. That's stretching it already, and you are suggesting they continue to give full support to both games?

Should they be communicating more with the Guild Wars community? Maybe. You seem to think GW:B requires more communication from them, I'm really not sure. In purely practical terms should it be a priority for them? Probably not, as if they were to increase engagement with the Guild Wars audience again it would again require hiring more community staff. Finding someone who is qualified and suitable would take months, not to mention getting them settled in and actually doing the job - by which point Guild Wars 2 might already be dragging people away by the hundreds.

You are basically advocating that community managers waste their time with idle chatter, as if pure attention is the magic solution for community woes. I'm afraid that's not the case, however much many people on this forum live for it.

Attention does help in the short term, but that's it. Instead of 'we need more communication' it soon becomes 'we need better communication', as people realize that nothing is actually being solved. Quantity of communication is no substitute for quality - and can actually be detrimental: Constant small talk will water down the significance of your communication, meaning when you need impact it wont be there. It also builds an expectation for that level of engagement, which you might not be able to sustain when things get busy, leading to even more disappointment.

There is a huge amount of depth in the community management role, most of which is invisible from the outside. It's very easy to be a community manager who appears to engage with the community regularly, a friendly face who offers consolation or a pat on the back. What's not easy is being a community manager who is actually effective at getting things done, making real differences.

I'd much rather have the latter, at the cost of the hugs and sunshine that come with the former, and luckily that is exactly what we have.


This thread reminds me of that famous phrase 'a little learning is a dangerous thing'. You know enough to be opinionated and upset, but not enough to really be aware of what you are talking about.

JR, you seem to be under the impression that I was discounting the work that GWGuru does when commenting on the importance of an official forum. However, that could not be farther from the truth. Honestly, I believe that GWGuru has done an amazing job helping to build the community and replace what was lost by the lack of an official forum.

That being said, there is more responsibility put on CRs when there is an official forum. They couldn't ignore it in the same way they have Guru in the past, even if their only actions were to delete a thread rather than responding, that would still be a reply in itself.

And please don't hear all of my posts as purely sophomoric whining. The truth is that I appreciate the CR team and the many things they've done. From what I hear, Martin is nothing short of amazing with the German community, and the others have done great things as well. My intention wasn't to cause massive panic or trolling. I was just curious as to the opinion of the community concerning our current CR status.

I understand that games age and that CR is less needed now in GW than it is for GW2. I was just curious if the sense of abandonment that seems prevalent among players now was self-appointed by our own community's misappropriated anger or if it was just another "sign-of-the-times."

Reading any more into my comments would be rather difficult; however, perception is different for each person so I hope my posts weren't taken the way you seemed to describe them.

JR you are right on several points, however I really do not think the mature and core player base are crying out for hugs and kisses from CRs.

What would be useful is regular updates. Examples include (and are certainly not limited to):

1. HA new map status?
2. Timeline for GWB content (general ideas or something is coming)
3. Messages on what the live team are working on currently X, Y and Z.
4. Updates on updates........ on schedule, delayed and the like.
5. Interview with Anet staff (like Regina did with the fashion developer for GW2) but with the live team...
6. There is more I am sure, just a few I can roll off.

Remember, this is the current audience that may or may not buy GW2. There are no current customers for GW2, there are thousands still for GW and depending how you relate to them may bring more of them to GW2 when it comes.

I know CR is tough, but when Regina says she use to have weekly meetings and decides what she relates to the community..and we basically get nothing....Okay we have had some updates from time to time..Thank you, but your customers would like to know more, they are eager for the information, suck them in and ultimately you will have a customer base who will sing about GW and GW2 rather then having some core fans and players feeling disillusioned and neglected due to no regular information or updates.

Silver

Remember that devs have private accounts that they use to play without consequences of being official figure (so that they can actually join pug or afk at 9 rings ...).

Guess what you want is official staff presence: It would be awesome if someone wearing "GM" tag showed up at district 1 during events and made it a bit more lively with his gm powers. (Remember Mursaat Rally player event where devs cam and actually spawned mursaat?)

But somehow it does not feel right for CR in their CR persona to do this kind of stuff. Especially when they are going to be facing community that is always angry about something.