How does everyone feel about Anet's communication and community interaction?

[Zexanima.7851]

Subsequent to the lay offs it _seemed_ like Anet was becoming more dedicated to communicating with the community about what's going on. It seems, to me at least, now that the buzz around the layoffs has died things have started to fall off more. We've gotten a few posts from them on the forums here and there clearing up some questions but nothing **really** substantial. I think it would be great if they would do some kind of weekly or bi-weekly news round up of what they can share with us and answer some questions the players have in that thread related to those points. It doesn't have to be a super in depth post on everything they are doing. Just a few bullet points of "Hey, here is some stuff we thought you guys might find interesting about what's going on"

 

Is this just me? What could they practically do to improve communication with us as a community? I just want something, anything, to speculate on and look forward to with the game other than just knowing "there will be future content".

[Randulf.7614]

Well we got a significant roadmap after the lay offs. That's the first of such in many a year. I think there are signs of some consistency in their communication, but also some steps back with things like the community events. I think we can thank Stephane where there is improved consistency

 

Communication is not and has never has been Anet's strength. They prefer to "surprise" and that philosophy is unlikely to ever change. They also know players will things as promises and throw it back at them when things that aren't actually promised aren't delivered to a player's arbitrary deadline.

 

I wish Anet would talk to us more. I've always said a monthly producer's letter that some MMO's and game dev team use is a positive thing to have. Is it likely to change from where we are now? No, probably not.

 

I will say, don't overlook Guild Chat. It's often a bit long and hard to reference point, but there are some great lines of communication utilised there at times

[Rafvik.3428]

Compared to every single other MMO with a small user base their communication is virtually non existant.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

> @"Zexanima.7851" said:

> Subsequent to the lay offs it _seemed_ like Anet was becoming more dedicated to communicating with the community about what's going on. It seems, to me at least, now that the buzz around the layoffs has died things have started to fall off more. We've gotten a few posts from them on the forums here and there clearing up some questions but nothing **really** substantial. I think it would be great if they would do some kind of weekly or bi-weekly news round up of what they can share with us and answer some questions the players have in that thread related to those points. It doesn't have to be a super in depth post on everything they are doing. Just a few bullet points of "Hey, here is some stuff we thought you guys might find interesting about what's going on"

>

> Is this just me? What could they practically do to improve communication with us as a community? I just want something, anything, to speculate on and look forward to with the game other than just knowing "there will be future content".

 

Exactly my thoughts.

No one can be sure lol. They may be really busy working on fixes,bugs,new content and trying to get a huge balance or rework to a number of classes completed. We'll find out, they surprise everyone and just are keeping things quiet to make sure it's a surprise to their players as things get leaked easy. Or maybe the person(s) in charge of the decisions in the past are still in charge and are stubborn and really want to branch out from gw2 so half the teams back to working on side projects putting gw2 back into maintenance mode. Could u imagine the meeting on balance and over all customer feedback as to the games state with a boss that wants to actively increase the games population and grow? How would that go? So ah I've been reading and doing some research on how our players feel about the state of the game regarding frequency of content,fixes,balance patches and just over all health of the game and it leaves me feeling like the players are----------- with the game. I'll let u fill in the blanks.

[Bloodstealer.5978]

Significant roadmap.. well yeah we know S5 comes next but that's kind of about it really.

Comms after the news that layoffs were imminent was damage limitation, then after they actioned the cull there was some comms in an effort to reassure both us and maybe their own staff that things are pushing on as normal and S5 would be following the finale of S4, but as for what the future holds for GW2 beyond S5.. uncertain is how I feel, though of course we just got some info (of sorts) that language servers are being killed off (another way of saying server merges imo).

As for comms in general its still pretty pedestrian imo.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

> @"Randulf.7614" said:

> Communication is not and has never has been Anet's strength. They prefer to "surprise" and that philosophy is unlikely to ever change.

 

That's my major complaint. I've played MMO's long enough to recognize that devs get little value from interacting with player base. Many of the requests levied are unreasonable, much of the feedback is short sighted, biased, or completely subjective, and no matter which way the devs might turn, they will be wrong. Additionally, forums in general comprise a very small subset of the player base, often dominated by the most vocal (usually embittered) players, which provide a very slanted view of the game.

 

But, this concept that ANET can't tells us what is coming until the day, or even week before, to me at least, is bothersome. They did a huge media campaign for the Skyscale, but skipped over the (now apparent) most important aspect: the collection. The whole event at the Mystic Forge was a dog's breakfast, and even when the event returned, many players didn't even know it was going on.

 

I know I can't expect to have what I used to get when I played WoW: websites full of data mined information, videos taken from the PTR, write ups, etc.

 

But I would like more than what we have.

 

Apparently when Dragon Bash is released, we will be getting a Skyscale Mount pack in the Gem Store. I bet many a player would liked to have known that when the 2000 gem Skyscale skin went up on the store the other week. Maybe they would still have bought it, but maybe some would have opted instead to save their gems for the other pack.

 

I find this deliberate withholding of information to be quite unpalatable. By all means, only confirm what you know is ready to launch, even if only a few weeks in advance. But that I have to rely on third party media sites for information, or wait until the 'day of', just doesn't sit well with me.

 

For the record, I've never felt 'pleasantly' surprised during any of this, so whatever strategy ANET has for 'surprising' us, it isn't working, at least for me.

 

EDIT: link added with additional info on Dragon's Bash https://www.mmorpg.com/guild-wars-2/columns/guild-wars-2-the-dragon-bash-festival-2019-1000013737

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

It’s typical from what I can see. They’ll decide to interact more and will do so for a while then it will taper off to near silence. Then they decide to interact more..... Rinse and repeat.

 

Example: [[This forum]](https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi). It was active for a while then fell to the wayside.

[kratan.4619]

I don't really feel the need to know upcoming things or fixes, when they are done I will find out then, not necessary for me. If changes go in a direction I do not like, I cease to play. Thinking about upcoming content, or the lack thereof, has no bearing on that.

[Jski.6180]

I find it very restive you cant ask question about hot topic unless your in the highly class aimed forms. It feels very bubble aimed where you very much not allowed to talk to the devs directly but often very 2ed handed.

 

I cant ask the question to a dev that i want to and ever hope to get a replay or even a replay that is kind of like my question.

 

Where do i go to ask a question of the devs with some hope of getting a dev response?

[Ashen.2907]

When I buy a product I dont expect the company to spend a ton of time "communicating" with me after the fact. If there is a problem with the product I will open a line of communication with them, and perhaps expect them to make some sort of announcement about a fix at that time. As a result I consider any of the communication mentioned in passing by the OP to be a bonus.

[Flying.6509]

Played a bunch of MMOs, they usually have people answering questions on the forums, community managers, moderators, just generally showing that they care about their player base. Anet? Nothing, not a peep. Makes them look like they don't really care. It's bizarre.

[Zexanima.7851]

> @"Ashen.2907" said:

> When I buy a product I dont expect the company to spend a ton of time "communicating" with me after the fact. If there is a problem with the product I will open a line of communication with them, and perhaps expect them to make some sort of announcement about a fix at that time. As a result I consider any of the communication mentioned in passing by the OP to be a bonus.

 

This makes sense if it was a single player game I buy once and play it through and thats it. This is more akin to a service than a single purchase product though. I continue to pay them money for continuous content. When that's the case I kind of expect to hear news and updates from them on a cadence about where the product is heading if they expect me to continue to invest time and money into it. It's not twisting their arm to expect this as many game companies do this. Even single player game companies will do this even though it's not strictly necessary in their case.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

CDIs stopped because Chris Whiteside left, and that was his baby, and his baby alone.

I suspect the same thing with AFCs. No Gaile, no AFC.

 

As mentioned above, the Devs do answer player questions on Guild Chat each time, usually.

[zealex.9410]

> @"Randulf.7614" said:

> Well we got a significant roadmap after the lay offs. That's the first of such in many a year. I think there are signs of some consistency in their communication, but also some steps back with things like the community events. I think we can thank Stephane where there is improved consistency

>

> Communication is not and has never has been Anet's strength. They prefer to "surprise" and that philosophy is unlikely to ever change. They also know players will things as promises and throw it back at them when things that aren't actually promised aren't delivered to a player's arbitrary deadline.

>

> I wish Anet would talk to us more. I've always said a monthly producer's letter that some MMO's and game dev team use is a positive thing to have. Is it likely to change from where we are now? No, probably not.

>

> I will say, don't overlook Guild Chat. It's often a bit long and hard to reference point, but there are some great lines of communication utilised there at times

 

Reading the "roadmap" again its kinda offensive to games with actual roadmaps to call this a roadmap. Theres it better communication but its moreso in areas like balance and maybe small events.

 

Content and up and comming features arent really communicated as they should imo. As you referenced producer's leters are excellent forms of communication that anet should look into.

[Poormany.4507]

> @"zealex.9410" said:

> > @"Randulf.7614" said:

> > Well we got a significant roadmap after the lay offs. That's the first of such in many a year. I think there are signs of some consistency in their communication, but also some steps back with things like the community events. I think we can thank Stephane where there is improved consistency

> >

> > Communication is not and has never has been Anet's strength. They prefer to "surprise" and that philosophy is unlikely to ever change. They also know players will things as promises and throw it back at them when things that aren't actually promised aren't delivered to a player's arbitrary deadline.

> >

> > I wish Anet would talk to us more. I've always said a monthly producer's letter that some MMO's and game dev team use is a positive thing to have. Is it likely to change from where we are now? No, probably not.

> >

> > I will say, don't overlook Guild Chat. It's often a bit long and hard to reference point, but there are some great lines of communication utilised there at times

>

> Reading the "roadmap" again its kinda offensive to games with actual roadmaps to call this a roadmap. Theres it better communication but its moreso in areas like balance and maybe small events.

>

> Content and up and comming features arent really communicated as they should imo. As you referenced producer's leters are excellent forms of communication that anet should look into.

 

Agreed. Would have at least liked some kind of confirmation that there will be an expac eventually that is being or will be worked on. I see little reason to spend/buy gems if there is no long term future for the game and it ends or continues in only Living World episodes every 4-5 months with 1 hour of story each (now it's not even certain if we'll get new maps with each episode). I just want some kind of reassurance that GW2 will last for over 1-2 years longer, which a lot of players are uncertain and worried about about rn.

[AgentMoore.9453]

I actually think they've been communicating more since the layoffs, but the nature of the communication is scattered.

 

It's true that Guild Chat is a somewhat regular source of responses, but only in a rambling and disorganized sort of way that most people can't commit 45 minutes to. Add to that the random promotions and in-game events that are mentioned in arbitrary places (Sometimes in-game, sometimes the loading screen, sometimes the forum, sometimes on outside social media or some combination thereof), and it becomes a little overwhelming. These days, people seem to be relying on gaming blogs and outside websites to consolidate GuildWars2 news for them from various sources, and that's just.. weird.

 

In short: Yay communication, we like that! Please try to do it either on a schedule, in a reliable place/platform, and/or right on the forum or game loading screen/mail when possible. I don't feel ignored, just a bit lost.

[Samnang.1879]

personally dont care.

i like just seeing the final product... seeing previews doesn't give me thrills...

 

but... i would appreciate it if they could tell us what items we need to craft legendaries instead of just springing it upon us... example we need 250 of each map currency or something.... so we can gather it over time instead of marathoning it in 1 day...............

[Ashen.2907]

> @"Zexanima.7851" said:

> > @"Ashen.2907" said:

> > When I buy a product I dont expect the company to spend a ton of time "communicating" with me after the fact. If there is a problem with the product I will open a line of communication with them, and perhaps expect them to make some sort of announcement about a fix at that time. As a result I consider any of the communication mentioned in passing by the OP to be a bonus.

>

> This makes sense if it was a single player game I buy once and play it through and thats it. This is more akin to a service than a single purchase product though. I continue to pay them money for continuous content. When that's the case I kind of expect to hear news and updates from them on a cadence about where the product is heading if they expect me to continue to invest time and money into it. It's not twisting their arm to expect this as many game companies do this. Even single player game companies will do this even though it's not strictly necessary in their case.

 

I don't invest money in a game. Even an ongoing game such as an MMO. I buy a product or products. When I buy something in the gem store I am buying that thing, if, and only if, that thing is worth my money.

 

Similarly, I do not invest time in a game. I play it. But only when it is enjoyable for me to do so. I don't when it is not.

 

Of course each player makes such decisions for themselves.

[Elothar.4382]

I play the game as its offered and have fun. When it ceases to be fun, I'll quit. Dev posts and communications don't really affect my perception of the game very much. It's nice, in a casual sort of way, to see what's coming but I don't need a lot of detailed communication about it. As it stands, I'm okay with the way it is now.

[Gop.8713]

In a word I would say communication from anet has been inconsistent, so how players answer this question will probably vary based on which aspects of the game interest them. From my perspective I would say it is fair to poor overall, trending towards fair . . .

[Jski.6180]

> @"Elothar.4382" said:

> I play the game as its offered and have fun. When it ceases to be fun, I'll quit. Dev posts and communications don't really affect my perception of the game very much. It's nice, in a casual sort of way, to see what's coming but I don't need a lot of detailed communication about it. As it stands, I'm okay with the way it is now.

 

That easy to say when your way of having fun has not had its legs cut out from under it over and over for years. Look out side of your bubble of "fun" and try to empathizes with others ppl "fun." Try reading other forms and look just how often a dev even talked about a bug very much repeating to that form let alone responding to open criticizing of what they are doing and the choose they are making. My suggestion where to look is blunt but cant be said. At least 4 years and counting with the same problems and same post over and over tell me is it ok for this communications?

[maddoctor.2738]

Posts like these becoming more regular would be enough I think:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/whats-next-for-guild-wars-2/

The Next Few Months part is already old news by now, Episode 6 is out, Season 4 ended, the new Raid is available. The Future and Further Down the Road parts are still far away.

 

From that same post:

> This sort of discussion of projects that we’ve kept under wraps until now is a departure from how we’ve been communicating for a while. It’s our hope that through posts like this we can help clarify for you what our priorities and goals are for the game.

 

We should get a "The Next Few Months" segment every... few months, especially when everything else discussed in the previous one is already finished.

[Cuks.8241]

I have no need to communicate with Anet and do not expect anything in this regard from them. It is nice to have a general overview of what is to come (S5, build templates ...) but that is about it. And I wouldn't really care if there is no road map because I play the game now and will only until it is fun regardless of what is to come on paper.

[aspirine.6852]

I would love to see where Anet is going with this game, and that is just not clear for me now. If they are clear on never releasing another expansion please let us know.

 

[Offair.2563]

The fact they were recruiting "forum specialists" in the past says enuff.