make an official Anet forum

Official Anet forum, enough said.
more ppl will actually know its existence and lets Face it only 5% of the players go to guru forums.

Taking a look at the retrospective and GW log in screen for their search for web designer, I really hope an official forum is coming

Maybe by the time GW2 is out... but think, you can't expect it to be deployed and run smooth from there. They would need to hire more people or put some of their people on forum moderation, peace and maintenance needs to be kept..etc...

I doubt an official forum is going to happen as long as they are satisfied with what they can do on their official wikis.

Only 5% of players are active enough to need a forum.

Based on the pre-release hype and the GW2 smart phone apps and browser integration, I'm sure ANet is planning some massive community support for GW2.

Will it be of any benefit to GW1? Who knows. I wouldn't bet any money on it and as-is I'm sure most players are comfortable enough with the current status quo.

The guru sites and the way the official wiki and the curse wiki are run is more than enough. Sorry OP, but you have no idea how good the wiki community is for GW1 compared to other MMO wikis. Also, gwguru and gw2guru are pretty great(most of the time) as far as gaming communities go. Don't push for something that isn't needed.

/notsigned

I think most players would have killed for GW to have blue posts.

Anet doesn't want real feedback. 'Nuff said.

would have been nice, but doubtful it will ever happen, sorry OP.

Anet isnt going to hire "staff" for an official forum - also it may mean paying money for a new site name for the forum , attaching it to gw site etc etc and you think that with the problems they have just keeping guildwars.com up to date ( ask many players when theres been an update or networks problems when do they appear on website ?? ) they will be able to maintain a forum ?
Nah - several days for posts to be answered and many of the community up in arms over it.Nice idea on paper but in practice it would fail sadly.
Players help other players on guru and other unofficial sites - can you see anet telling us wheres a gd place to farm , how to use texmod , how to get survivor easily etc ?

I'm convinced that you're posting without actually knowing what official forums are like.

Depends what you mean by an official forum, official doesn't need to be any more than what we already have here.

As long as anet officially recognise one or more forums its a kind of approval rating of the way a forum is run.

But official as in company staffed isn't likely and if it did happen is unlikely to say anything interesting since it would never say anything overly critical.

ANet have already mentioned that the browser and app integration will also be enabled for chat in Guild Wars as well as Guild Wars 2. Obviously GW2 will have additional benefits from the apps but they are/were planning to integrate GW players as well.

Indeed, Guild Wars recognise 'Elite Fan Sites' for their community, content, and ability. Guru is one of these as well as other GW Communities including those in different languages.

Trying to start up an additional forum community when there is already an Official Wiki would be a bit of a disaster, they can't possibly expect all the community to gather to one forum when at the moment there are a lot of players spread over different communities.

ANet also list all the fan sites and forums on the Guild Wars website, so any player that wants to find an online community outside the game can do so quite easily, this is how I found the forums!

No doubt they are planning more integration with Social Networking but I would suggest you stick to GW Guru and GW2 Guru.

IMO it depends on how often people visit the main site. If they visit the main site and see forums that are well advertised, they will visit said forums. If it's going to be a small addition to the top navigation bar that says "Forums" then not many people will visit. If they include a box on the main page with a small bit of blurb about the forums then again, people will be more likely to use them, as would putting links on the Support pages to the appropriate forums.

Sometimes even with the awareness being high, people can be put off using the forums by poor layout and bad moderation. I know Nexon Europe had very poor forums for about 2 years. No moderators (other than the odd post being removed if you took a screenshot of the page and emailed it to them) other than the occasional GM sometimes removing things and banning the odd person. The layout was truly laughable and it was like trying to navigate on a moonless night with a balaclava on your head backwards. I actually set up my own forums and site for people to access things (a part Wiki-esque database with forums) and this quickly became the go-to point for many people. After a while, I left as I simply had no more interest in the game and my site died HOWEVER it had spurred Nexon Europe into improving their own site as so many people were dissatisfied. With the forums now, they hired regular in game players to moderate and I think they receive a certain amount of non-profit game items each for doing so.

But yes, it took 3 years for them to actually listen to the community and shape up. I still think it's only because they didn't like the fact that we openly criticised them on my site and discussed private servers (which is now a bannable offence on the official forums so i herd) and wanted complete control over the community.

I've always been a user of multiple forums so I can't say that I'd abandon Guru if there was an official forum set up. I'd browse both, probably Guru would be my preference as I'm used to popping on here a couple of times a day. However for those who might not want to come to Guru as it's not an official site (and let's be honest, there HAVE been security issues in the past)

/signed

Also saves people making complaint threads here and expecting us to resolve them.

/signed

i'd like to see Anet actually keeping an eye on GW players
ok, they did listen to some things, but we would be able to see them, like they telling us how long stuff will take, not the "we think...." but that they are pretty far with it, or are too busy with something else, and didnt work on it yet

dont take me wrong, i didnt mean they have to say something everyday or have to give all details, just a hint to how far they are with stuff, like telling us when at 50% or above (just once or twice)

tbh, i dont like the "somewhere near (time or date)"
a bit more detailed would be nice (although they could do it on fansites too, but they dont)

this is pretty much my reason why i'd like to see it

Having an official forum doesn't say Anet will release their info differently. Anything you are wanting can already be done with the wiki.

That said, I am content with Guru and the few other forums. People from Anet visit those as well, so I am not seeing any need for an official forum.

Guru is only two clicks away for the people looking for a place to talk about their game from GW.com (community -> fansites)
Saves Anet from wading though dozens of complaints from which half of them can easily be solved by the community itself

Official forum problems:

1. loss of freedom of speech
Most company-owned game forums seem to restrict what you can say about the game or the company

2. waste of ArenaNet resources
As very good forums already exist for ArenaNet games, it would be a waste of money and employee time to set up something new.

3. high expectations not met
An ArenaNet forum would be expected to supply more information on a more timely basis than the current forums. This will not happen. ArenaNet already supplies news and updates in as timely a fashion as they will ever do. A change of forum will not improve on that.

To sum it up, /unsigned

/notsigned

Every official forum for a game I have ever visited has been appalling. The main problem is clone threads, hundreds of new members join every day and every single one makes a "What do you think of my build" thread, forums quickly become swamped with useless and repeat threads. Also, mods on official forums seem to have insane power complexes because they have been appointed by developers but are still just members of the community, valid posts are deleted and reasonable members are banned for any criticism of the game, company or developers.

I doubt there'd be any more dev input on an official forum than there is here.

An official forum doesn't seem all that necessary to me. Anet staffers already correspond with the community through the gurus and the official wikis (as well as a few less popular places). I'd rather anet spent more time coming up with new game content on their own, in their own environment than bend to the whining demands of the community. They may not always get everything right, but they so far have produced a hell of a product.

/notsigned

Its a good idea. And ANet is an awesome company. But, the fan community can do it better, like Guru and Wiki. Plus, I would rather Anet concentrate their resources on the game.

/notsigned

If Anet had wanted an official forum for GW, they would have set one up a long time ago.

(also, since it was brought up...you don't have freedom of speech anywhere on the internet. Every site you go on restricts what you can and cannot post. You think you can just say what you want on here? Of course not.)

well anet retrospective, they say they are a company that wants to build a community, why let a 3rd party do it. Anet this is your chance to support your video claim!! gogogo

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/

Wiki's are terrible. They are good for concrete material, something that can definitively be answered one way or another. For anything that requires discussion or revolves around opinion (such as game balance/satisfaction/etc) its only slightly better than a room full of angry yelling drunks.

Aside form that you have wiki editors. And the fact that there is no flow to a wiki. No way to filter crap on a wiki. It shouldn't be surprising that less total people are going to be active on a wiki than would be on a messageboard. Choosing wiki exclusively over a messageboard is just a terrible idea.

I meant in the sense of being able to criticize the game or the company as I stated. You are quite free to do so here on guru (as thousands of threads attest), but might not have that same freedom on a company-run forum. Of course all forums have rules, and how well they are enforced determines the fate of the forum. Ones that descend into chaos become unused.

what are we supposed to get out of this link?

An official forum is worthwhile if it's used as actual avenue of communications by the staff, as Blizzard does on WoW's official forums.

I'd rather see ANet getting closer with Curse somehow, making Gurus at least semi-official, with more - and more serious - activity from ANet's side here. I don't see it coming, but i don't think they would start a totally fresh, clean forum either.