Why Anet have own icon and we dont?

We have to pick from some basic stuff while Anet have there own character icons in the forum. Why cant we? Is it that hard? Why cant we just upload our own icon? And if thats not possible or aloud. Then why Anet does? I rather see a Anet logo. Now your just showing off your own created icon too all of us that cant.

yeah no thanks I much rather they take out and remove all player icon. and not let us upload any said icon pics of our own . being stuck seen others bad tastes yeah no thanks . I just see no need for them at all myself . but think it is a good idea for anet devs to have their own so we all know who is anet employee . and who is not would work far more better

@WARIORSCHARGEING.2637 said:yeah no thanks I much rather they take out and remove all player icon. and not let us upload any said icon pics of our own . being stuck seen others bad tastes yeah no thanks . I just see no need for them at all myself . but think it is a good idea for anet devs to have their own so we all know who is anet employee . and who is not would work far more better

Thats fine by me also.. A good red Anet logo would be nice also so its easier to find anet posts in mobile mode.. in desktop mode it gets a red bar

Here is what Gaile said about this issue:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/114704#Comment_114704

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:About uploading personal avatars: That is something we are not planning to implement, as (1) we cannot host images here for security purposes and (2) allowing the linking to off-site images can create... er... problems when the images are self-chosen but, perhaps, not self-moderated. That's my attempt at putting things subtly, but do you get what I'm saying there? The ability to link to images on third-party sites can lead to poor choices, like Balthazar in a bubble bath, dogs and cats living together, Faren in a speedo... oh wait... ;)

Anyway, to keep things on an even keel, we're going to host avatars, but we'll definitely look into expanding the choices in the future!!

As for why Anet staff can have their own, I imagine it is because they work there and trust that the avatar they use will not violate the rules or be a security issue. ;)

While it would be really nice to be able to use our own pics, you know that it wouldn't take long for someone to try to use an inappropriate pic....I guess Anet doesn't want the extra responsibility of vetting icons as they are uploaded. The trade-off is that Anet should add lots more pics for us to choose from.

Security reasons, as has been mentioned by one of the devs on these forums, is why players can't upload pictures. With Arenanet staff, pictures that are uploaded can be verified by their security staff and their security measures before being uploaded, players can't go through the same strict procedures because they are not held to anywhere near as much scrutiny as an employee may be. I wish i could remember where to look for that devs post about security issues, but nonetheless those security issues for pictures DO exist, which is why we can't upload them.

@nicknamenick.2437 said:

@WARIORSCHARGEING.2637 said:yeah no thanks I much rather they take out and remove all player icon. and not let us upload any said icon pics of our own . being stuck seen others bad tastes yeah no thanks . I just see no need for them at all myself . but think it is a good idea for anet devs to have their own so we all know who is anet employee . and who is not would work far more better

I can agree on that too as well with the logo,s for anet :)

Hmm, I only remember Gaile having a custom avatar, the other Dev's I've seen have used the same ones we got (Berdrow uses the Caithe one)

I'm guessing another reason the Anet staff get custom avis is to make them more distinct.

@Yol.1685 said:While it would be really nice to be able to use our own pics, you know that it wouldn't take long for someone to try to use an inappropriate pic....I guess Anet doesn't want the extra responsibility of vetting icons as they are uploaded. The trade-off is that Anet should add lots more pics for us to choose from.

@Yol.1685 said:While it would be really nice to be able to use our own pics, you know that it wouldn't take long for someone to try to use an inappropriate pic....I guess Anet doesn't want the extra responsibility of vetting icons as they are uploaded. The trade-off is that Anet should add lots more pics for us to choose from.

I think a simple report that profile option would do the trick.Sure some might use it to troll, but then they get their own punishment.Otherwise I see it as something that could be regulated with the help of the community

@WARIORSCHARGEING.2637 said:yeah no thanks I much rather they take out and remove all player icon. and not let us upload any said icon pics of our own . being stuck seen others bad tastes yeah no thanks . I just see no need for them at all myself . but think it is a good idea for anet devs to have their own so we all know who is anet employee . and who is not would work far more better

I normally never agree with you. But many +1. Go back to old forum plz.

Honestly? Anet shouldn't be allowed pictures then. Especially if the masses aren't allowed even decent pictures to chose from. :/ Add more and I won't be so salty. #unpopularopinion

@"Hiwi Kiwi.7386" said:Honestly? Anet shouldn't be allowed pictures then. Especially if the masses aren't allowed even decent pictures to chose from. :/ Add more and I won't be so salty. #unpopularopinion

More may be on the way.https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/113731#Comment_113731

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:We hope to add more avatars over time, for sure!

@Jaken.6801 said:I think a simple report that profile option would do the trick.Sure some might use it to troll, but then they get their own punishment.Otherwise I see it as something that could be regulated with the help of the communityThat still requires Anet spending time to moderate user reports which in itself can be used to troll/waste time for something that really doesn't add anything. Plus there's the whole risk of having people upload porn, child porn, nazi images, etc. to official Anet servers. You would either need to approve avatars before they're accepted (which would be a fulltime job for someone) or pre-approve everything and deal with it as it comes up. Having spent most of my teens and all of my twenties on the internet and internet forums, I cannot tell you how much inappropriate, disgusting, or hateful avatars I've seen even on sites where you wouldn't expect it. All it really takes is one person or one group and dozens/hundreds/thousands get exposed to content they didn't want any part in.

I really can't blame a game developer not wanting anything to do with that, since it just causes more work and there's always the risk of legal action. Random forums aren't much of a target, but an MMO dev? High profile and the "think of the children" angle. More avatars would be nice (or being able to take selfies of our characters and using that), but I see no good coming from letting people upload their own avatars.

@nicknamenick.2437 said:We have to pick from some basic stuff while Anet have there own character icons in the forum. Why cant we? Is it that hard? Why cant we just upload our own icon? And if thats not possible or aloud. Then why Anet does? I rather see a Anet logo. Now your just showing off your own created icon too all of us that cant.

Because ANet employees are much less likely to use memes, unseemly bodyparts, and gore. Rather than having to policy the images and punish those who use images that are wrong, they decided to make it impossible to use a wrong image altogether.

Personally, I'd prefer if the client could send the headshots it can genereate for dialog panels to the forum and let us chose one of them, so we could use our character portraits.

Or that we could use one of our guild emblems that can be obtained through the API.

Being able to update our own icon or avatar may be a very normal feature for most forums, but it really does not have that much benefit aside from showing your own taste or what you like to people, it would actually have more problems such as what others mentioned.

Having preset avatar is really nice and neat.

You need an Avatar creation potion at the store, cost 1,200 gems, a real bargain.

Not that I care either way, but security reasons? Really? At least tell the truth in that they don't want to have to monitor and moderate custom avatars.

the real question is, why dont they give us more pictures to choose from, and why are all the damn icons so blurry!?!?

I will say that I think the "we can't host custom avatars for security reasons" is an absolute cop out.

Thousands of MMORPGs, including super low budget ones, have their own forums with customised avatars. Is there a risk that someone might upload a pen­is as their avatar? absolutely there is, but moderating avatars is not a difficult process, and just because there's a slight risk that a handful of people might abuse the privilege of custom avatars is simply not a good enough reason to take it away from everyone, especially when all forum users are paying customers of the game.

Damn shame there isn't a way to at least use an in game character screen as our avatars, imported directly from the game so there's no chance of dick-pic avatars. I don't need to be told that such a feature would be fairly difficult to make and really isn't worth Anet's time. But I can dream.

However, I DO think they can and SHOULD put signatures back into posts, its rather lazy of them not to have included them..

Hate Is Fuel

I don't mind ArenaNet having their own avatars, but, what I do dislike is the low-quality images when we post something, they look vastly different from the ones we pick in the actual interface.

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:Personally, I'd prefer if the client could send the headshots it can generate for dialogue panels to the forum and let us chose one of them, so we could use our character portraits.

Great idea, considering our accounts are already linked to the forum, and there's be no issue of inappropriate images.

Headshots sound good in theory, but I'm imagining row after row of avatars glowing with the fury of a thousand infusions.

Actually the more I'm thinking about it, I like the idea about using our guild tags from the API. And the more I think about it, the less I want to see all the random players questionable sense of fashion sense, unless it can be turned off.

Also, after this thread I've looked every time I've seen a Dev post, and they all use the same stock images we use. EXCEPT GAILE. So really, this thread should change name to:

"Why Gaile have own icon and we don't"

Answer is probably that Gaile is the forum boss, and the one person that really deserves to get a own icon, considering all she has to deal with. I'm fine with that.