ArenaNet Forum Chats Coming!
Gaile Gray.6029
ArenaNet › ArenaNet
As we look to the start of a new year, we want to let you know about an exciting new initiative we’re going to offer here on the forums: Bi-weekly ArenaNet Forum Chats with Guild Wars 2 developers or development teams. These chats will be our take on the concept of a developer AMA.
The GW2 AFC series will begin in February. On a bi-weekly basis, an individual dev or team of devs will join the forums for a few hours to engage with you in real time on the topics you care about. You can create a thread to ask a question, give feedback, express a concern, or share a kudo. Or you can join an existing thread to share your thoughts on the topic at hand.
As always, we’ll be talking about the game as it is at the current time, rather than focusing on future development, although it’s always possible that some predictive info will be shared. Also, it goes without saying that in a two-hour event, it’s likely that we won’t be able to get to every thread that is created, nor answer every question that may be raised. However, the benefit of players and developers sharing ideas during these sessions could have far-reaching benefits, and we hope you’ll join in!
First order of business will be setting up a guest list. So, please share your ideas for dev or dev team participants. If you would also give a little idea of why you’d like that person or team to take part, that would be very helpful, as well.
We look forward to seeing you as participants in the AFCs!
Gaile Gray
Communications Manager: ArenaNet
Fansite & Guild Relations; In-Game Events; Community Showcase Live
Comments
Well, this should be interesting, thanks for the notice!
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Would be nice to hear from the resident economist regarding the current state of the game... used to enjoy having access to John Smith way back when there was a separate sub-forum for economic discourse.
Thanks in advance.
It would be fun, and enlightening, perhaps, to interact with the Living World Team.
Maclaine, Linsey, Josh F., McKenna and Leah are always fun to talk to.
The QA Team would be great to have, as well.
Thanks in advance to all.
Sounds fantastic. I look forward to this starting.
One question though, will this be taking place in all sub-forums, a specific sub-forum, or will the sub-forum change based on who the participating dev(s) is(are) at the time and their position/specialization?
(Ex. A pvp dev doing an AFC, would it be in the pvp sub-forum or are all going to be in general discussion regardless of topic?)
If it is taking place in a single sub-forum, I imagine all of the thread creation spam asking questions may fill page 1 quite quick and push any non-AFC discussion threads to be lost to the back pages.
Is a dedicated sub-forum for AFCs going to be created, or would a separate place for this only attract those who seek it out and lessen participation compared to if it were always in existing sub-forums?
Just wondering where to watch for it to be and if I need to watch different places each time. On that note, will there be a news/announcement (an actual news/announcement in the news/announcement sub-forum) when one is scheduled to take place?
Awesome! That's exactly what I was missing in these forums! I'd love to see dev's from the different professions if that could be arranged I'd be very happy!
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So is it like a chat/shoutout thing? OR do you mean chat as in topics made?
This is amazing. Big thanks to any devs who take their time to do this!
Brilliant news. Lots of positive things happening right now - greater interaction with many of the teams, a great first episode of ls4 and some of what the head of marketing guy said about celebrating the game and bringing back the hype. Should be a good year for the game and community!
I’d like to hear from lore and narrative personally. Rather than call out all the issues we have with story and consistency, it would be good to discuss contexts and structures so we can have a greater understanding of why things are as they are. I sppreciate the need to avoid spoilers or potential upcoming storylines, but it is always interesting to hear from the team about how and why they choose to proceed down a story arc and the obstacles involved.
What sleep is here? What dreams there are in the unctuous coiling of the snakes mortal shuffling. weapon in my hand. My hand the arcing deathblow at the end of all things. The horror. The horror. I embrace it. . .
All parties associated with balance and specifically Necromancer!
"As always, we’ll be talking about the game as it is at the current time, rather than focusing on future development"
If this is true then what's the point exactly? Talking about the game as it is in anything other than praise is the only way this could be useful. "What will you do about this?" "Will you fix this?" All these questions rely on talking about future information... the most pertinent questions do. If those are off-limits and won't be addressed then really what's the point.
Ben Arn.. .. but he need to work on all those awesome updates like health bars... uuu.. No, leave our Ben alone! Give him more money instead!
Hmm, maybe your game engine magicians? Would be great to learn what features Guild Wars 2 could possibly get in future (like GH decoration's limits or procedure generated areas).
Awesome, mayhap we can get a push for power builds to be more viable to open up more options. Would love to be able to do higher tier stuff, but alas, my main is a necro.
What time? I'm assuming some time between 11am-3pm PST? If it's around that time, I can't participate since I'll be at work.
But I request at some point, Peter Fries should be a part of the AFC series. He must answer more questions about his choya love.
Would really like to see a WvW dev in attendance.
If there is any group or individuals that could be assembled regarding the topic of guilds and guild related activities/support, that would get my vote.
Outside of that, as others have said, the balance team should probably be near the top of the must do list.
Narrative Team
Q&A / Interesting or Wonky bugs
AI Design / Encounter Designers
Anyone who can speak of the Table and what is actually on it (My guess is another table)
Is the amount of moderating going to be toned down at all for these kinds of AMA forum threads? There's a reason the gw2 subreddit and other fansites became so popular for game discussion and it's super easy to get infractions for even the slightest things on here. I can't imagine official forum AMA threads being able to get the same kinds of questions and comments as what's allowed to get voted up on reddit.
I vote the class and combat team(s). Why? because those areas need the most tlc.
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/8080/forbes-interview-and-my-thoughts-on-competitive-gameplay-development
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/62658/alliance-design-that-stops-the-qq
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/62555/putting-fun-back-into-designs-and-balancing
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/9804/idea-wvw-only-movement-skills
Can't tell you how happy this makes me. I have seen nothing but a hugely increased effort by Anet to include the immediate community in shaping the game and talking with us. I hope you won't be discouraged by any negativity, most of us are really grateful for the opportunity to communicate. I personally as a new player was attracted to WvW and I would like a chance to talk to the WvW team and share some feedback from myself and my guild (we do GvG and raids). I would like to talk to the gem store team and give them feedback based on familiar complaints I hear.
I personally can't wait.
Thanks for this, Gaile!
An idea for you: Create a thread for ideas (only) for this AFC . Encourage people to not debate within that thread. If there needs to be a debate, create a new one and link to it.
For ideas that people would like to talk about, we can sort of vote on them. Give them a "thumbs up" if a member thinks it would be a good thing to discuss. If any of us REALLY thinks it should be included, give it a "helpful" instead.
That way, you (Gaile) can put forth an agenda to your folks so they are not blind-sided.
???
I'd like profession specific threads, I'd like to know who specifically takes care of engineer balance for example and what their plans are for the class, sort of like a roadmap. Guessing every profession wants something like that too.
That's not how it is, also please stay on topic.
Thanks for this, Anet! Would give me hope to know what you are working on and what needs to be addressed.
Great to know! Thanks
This will go along way to improving communication between devs - players.
I hope this hits big and can continue far into the future.
A City of Heroes never die... A City of Villains will never surrender... Neither City will be forgotten.
Yay no more trying to navigate the visual clusterkitten that is reddit
BG
I would really love if the dev/devs who can speak about decorations and scribing might interact with us at some point. I know there isn't a dedicated team for that but I guess there's gotta be someone that's the "go to" devs for decorations/scribing and it would be really nice to know who that is and get a chance to speak with them.
Maybe as an extra bonus ANet could start up a "suggest decorations you'd like to see" thread for that week with the most popular choices getting added? That would be a fun bonus.
Great to hear. But what bi-weekly you mean? Forstnihghtly or twice a week? The English language is ambigous in this case.
Are you serious? AMA itself is a brilliant idea and a step in the right direction, but a ribbon-like forum format (as opposed branch-like that Reddit uses) is specifically abysmal for AMA purposes. You don't get a notification when someone answered to your comment, and most importantly, you don't see questions and responses close to each other. When you see a question, you have no other choice but to scroll through the rest of the topic to find out whether the question was answered.
A single post on Reddit is structurally an alternative to creation of a whole new sub-forum for each specific AMA session, and even then Reddit is vastly structurally superior (simply because forum topic doesn't have structure at all, it's a simple stream).
If you want to see what a clustercharr looks like, go here and tell me how many responses from Gaile Gray are there. On Reddit, I would find all of them in approximately five seconds.
I would like to ask "WvW concept developers" questions. I don't even know who is responsible for the current concept, what goals it pursues or how he or she imagines the WvW personally.
Especially because the WvW has become an area defined by the community in the game principle - some want PPT, the other PPK, some only GVG and others fight solo or blob.
But what is your idea of what the WvW should be, or rather in which direction YOU want to develop it?
Probably all WvW players want to know in which direction we can expect changes in the very sick system. From the community masses of suggestions, ideas and concepts were raised. But we have not yet heard from your side in which direction you imagine and plan this.
The fact that only two DEVs are used for this area also sounds more like a proclamation, managing it and only ballanced the existing one. New developments or extensions are not intended. The latter is then really the statement that the WvW is dead.
In addition, after 2 (?) years now, after which we have been given a greater focus on the WvW and only small details have happened, a CLEAR statement would be very desirable.
We are your fans! Talk to us and don't run us down from above! Plz!
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Very good decision. Reddit culture is very bad for the quality of the discussion. Here you can devide threads per topic, like you did for pvp and enforce people to stay on subject. Will be interesting to read.
As for questions, I would love to see some answers from team responsible for possible implementation of build templates, are they planned and for community to post suggestions about what this feature should include.
Yes I am super serious, I hate reddit and all the kitten on the screen. I did not like how they would only do these things on reddit, so I am personally happy for this. They also did not say they are abandoning reddit, so I assume they will use both forums.
BG
Skepticism 100%
Another attempt to calm pvp+www community with useless chatter about something. Answers in the style of "maybe", "the question requires further study", "can not disclose details", "it is possible, but we do not guarantee"
I'll be honest, I'm a big ambivalent about this.
On one hand, I'd love the chance to pick developer brains to see their lines of thought for design choices.
On the other hand, I can see many other things that devs would be better off doing than biweekly AMAs.
I would love more well timed AMAs than the day of release so folks could ask informed questions, but I was thinking more "the week after a release". Biweekly feels a bit much.
Went to Reddit and that is EXACTLY how it is. Bunch of lunatics. Haha.
cant wait until february - @OP can you please give everyone a week notice ahead of time as a reminder?
hoping to get Shadow Trap fixed!
please?!
allow ALL traits with cooldowns to be viewed above skillbar like the banners are on warrior to let us know whats off cooldown. If the acrobatics trait (Instant Reflexes) is offcooldown we will see the icon clientside.
I'm pretty sure if it was up to the forums, skills and balance team would have to be a staple segment of the bi-weekly Q&A
The initiative is nice, but the moment a hot topic appears (a.k.a. balance/rewards/WvW) the thread will be flooded, be aware. I'd suggest starting off every AMA on controversial issues by a quick FAQ most people would repeat over and over. And be as precise as you can in that, else it won't help.
Yeah, I stream once in a blue moon.
How about a discussion of style in armor and outfits.
Possible topics
1) buttcapes vs sleek
2) trench coats on medium armor vs short jackets or no jacket at all.
3) mixing styles in new armors designs. That is, in future armors make sets that look like they belong to a different armor weight. eg. Heavy appearing armor for light and mediums, light appearing armor for heavy and medium, medium appearing armor for light and heavy.
4) simple pants for light armor females.
5) for outfits, ability to show our armor helm like we could with gw1 costumes.
6) outfits that aren’t fancy. Like the new outfits from town clothing that look like regular clothing, not fancy party clothes.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet might give it to you.
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Mike Z would be an obvious person because he is now Game Director depending on the topic the leader of the development team. Also if possible MO just because he started the great initiative of developer AMAs.
7) Every single outfit NPCs got being available. ALL OF THEM!
What Rym said.
Id like abit more of the sound design duds also.
But yeah start of the qnas with the importand question in a Faq format. And then delve into more specific with each dev or team.
I hope the developers participating in these discussions have their heat resistant armor ready
Especially the balance team, but also many others like the outfit/armor design team, the story team and so on.
Having an economist answer some questions would be very interesting I guess, you don't hear from them all that often.
If you want X, and Y is needed to get get X, you also have to want Y if you really want X. If you don't want Y, you don't want X. It's easy.
Pro: Build Templates, Dungeon Rework, UW content
Contra: New Races, New Classes, New Weapons, Capes
I would love to talk to the reward/economist team, so we can take a look at where the revenant weapon skins from the beta is, and why it wasn't found 3 years later. As for the economist side, i would love to hear if there is any plans to adress the huge stagnation of the tp prices, because everything now is so cheap that if something isn't done quick, it is going to rear a very big ugly head later.
Bi weekly as in twice a week or as in every two weeks?
Will the dev tracker be fixed by that time? I think it would be highly important to push the changes on it before starting such operation as tracking comments by devs is completely terrible currently and ever since the forums change.
I can't believe it, an AMA from Anet and here on official forum, not on reddit, it's a dream becoming true xD
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Yes, bi weekly is a bit much. Once a month at least, since I would rather have the developers well....developing and let the idea(s) sink in for the month.
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I would really like for the WvW team to be the first to do this, as it is the gamemode that the community is the least informed about, we have no idea what's being currently worked on, what the devs think is the priority and ore importantly, what is the future of it.
I wonder what time it will be. When it comes to attention from devs, it goes a lot towards the NA-community. It is even hard to ever encounter a dev on the EU-servers. So would be great if it would be in the EU-evening. (so the morning for Arenanet)