This creeping silence is totally ruining the mood

First of all I don't intend to accomplish anything whatsoever with this, Just putting it out of my chest. I love GW2. I've bought both expansions for both me and my wife and we had alot of fun... But the way things are being handled currently, it's getting to the point we are anxious regarding they game's future -probably worried for nothing, but with no mentionings or communications of late on what could we expect on the horizon it's really frustrating to log in and keep the routine. We don't log in often anymore and lots of guild members are starting to lose interest in the game, to the point there isn't anyone to talk to in our guild's discord or ingame chat.Please don't let this silence ruin the experience of your playerbase. We are really looking foward for something to give us a little more hope on what we could expect, aside from the speculation that"s going on.Best regards

It has been that way for years. It is policy not to talk until ready to ship because a small handful ruined it for the rest of us by unfairly claiming broken promises.

I don’t like it and have started to turn towards games which do like to talk about what they are working on as I enjoy the hype (gw2 will always be played but not daily like I used to). But if you are expecting or hoping for a change in this, it will not happen.

Rest assured not even 10% of the player-base is interested in anything outside actually playing the game, including reading or hearing about "communications".So don't let your perceived "creeping silence" ruin your mood. Just enjoy the game, or don't.

They've actually said slightly more than they usually do at this point in the process - in that they've told us after season 4 we're getting season 5 instead of an expansion.

HoT wasn't announced until the last episode of Season 2, and although PoF was assumed to be coming after Season 3 (because apparently doing something once establishes a pattern which must be followed exactly in future) it wasn't actually announced until Season 3 ended. So based on that "pattern" we shouldn't be expecting to hear anything about the next release until the final episode of Season 4 launches, but I guess they wanted to manage expectations since they're doing things differently, and maybe because by now most people know what a Living World Season entails so it's not going to set up unrealistic expectations to say one is coming.

@"Goettel.4389" said:Rest assured not even 10% of the player-base is interested in anything outside actually playing the game, including reading or hearing about "communications".So don't let your perceived "creeping silence" ruin your mood. Just enjoy the game, or don't.

And the majority of those who "only care for playing the game" don't really play it, they skip as much as possible to get rewards ;)

But as for what the TC said. Radio-silence is usually a bad thing. But there isn't too much they can say. Anything that sounds like a promise, is a red flag, broken promises had happen before and they're hard to recover from. So the best tactic to make sure that doesn't happen, is to not say anything at all.

But it begs the question of, what exactly are the members of the Community Support team doing right now, if not communicating with us?

@Riku.4821 said:

@"Goettel.4389" said:Rest assured not even 10% of the player-base is interested in anything outside actually playing the game, including reading or hearing about "communications".So don't let your perceived "creeping silence" ruin your mood. Just enjoy the game, or don't.

I've seen plenty of official response on these forums, with some of it happily off-beat.Let's not presume how people do their jobs, right? If only because I hate people doing that to me. Let them work, and enjoy. Or don't. It's only a game, right? :-)

@Randulf.7614 said:It has been that way for years. It is policy not to talk until ready to ship because a small handful ruined it for the rest of us by unfairly claiming broken promises.

This is the crux of the issue.

While it is frustrating, I can't and don't blame Anet for the (mostly) radio silence. It really does take a few bad (and obnoxiously loud) apples to ruin it for everyone else. :T

@TheOrlyFactor.8341 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:It is policy not to talk until ready to ship because a small handful ruined it for the rest of us by unfairly claiming broken promises.While it is frustrating, I can't and don't blame Anet for the (mostly) radio silence. It really does take a few bad (and obnoxiously loud) apples to ruin it for everyone else. :T

On the bright side, they repaired/reworked the forum website a bit so they didn't have to depend on Reddit 'as much'.

Anet is well justified in being silent. Look at Blizzard, the crowd is ready to bring out tar and pitchforks if just the slightest comma in past statements doesnt lineup with reality.

You're not alone OP. As a vet, I also worry that this game is not going to move forward in a positive, valuable way. We have nothing to do to advance our characters in end game in any real meaningful way. What worries me is that Anet is so afraid of making real changes to shake this game up, we may be stuck in the holding pattern forever. This is the last year for me. If we don't get a REAL expansion (higher lvls, new gear, new ways to advance our character NOT by grinding) then I will be moving to ESO permanently.

@wickedkae.4980 said:You're not alone OP. As a vet, I also worry that this game is not going to move forward in a positive, valuable way. We have nothing to do to advance our characters in end game in any real meaningful way. What worries me is that Anet is so afraid of making real changes to shake this game up, we may be stuck in the holding pattern forever. This is the last year for me. If we don't get a REAL expansion (higher lvls, new gear, new ways to advance our character NOT by grinding) then I will be moving to ESO permanently.

Then you dont understand what the game is about, the itemcurve is flat with ascended gear as the peak.Wow have that and you have to replace all your gear each expansion. Also, its far too late in the games lifetime to add a gear threadmill.

Post cap progression will require grinding, as in playing the game, and the mastery system is solid enough for it. And unlike artifact power in wow, mastery is actually finishable.

Over the years of watching ANet, I'm generally more worried when they start talking. They aren't all that good at understanding what should be hyped and what they should leave well enough alone. They are really good at generating stuff that's worth my time, that's fun, and that seems to be fun for others, too.

ANet isn't my friend; I don't care if they stop talking to me. I care about what they deliver.

I'm one of the ppl who doesn't pay a lot of attn to promises of 'upcoming' content so since I'm out of the loop a little bit I'm curious as to what the OP is seeking communication about . . .

SAB should be upcoming, and the next LS ep which should carry with it content similar to previous releases. I'd only be interested in communications about that future content if anet was planning to deviate from the expected pattern and give us something else instead . . .

If anet was going to start communicating more I'd like to see more openness about what they are doing rather than what they are planning to do . . .

[insert "they tried to communicate but we were rude so they stopped" here]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Over the years of watching ANet, I'm generally more worried when they start talking. They aren't all that good at understanding what should be hyped and what they should leave well enough alone. They are really good at generating stuff that's worth my time, that's fun, and that seems to be fun for others, too.

ANet isn't my friend; I don't care if they stop talking to me. I care about what they deliver.

Its not a matter of anet being your friend or not, its about remembering this game exists or has a future and a direction more often than once every 3 months.

It's striking how interactive media leads (prospective) buyers to a sense of entitlement. I rarely if ever hear anyone complaining that the makers of their favorite book, movie or television series aren't sharing their future plans. You either go watch the next movie, or you don't. Your personal investment in a product doesn't give you any claim over it.

@wickedkae.4980 said:You're not alone OP. As a vet, I also worry that this game is not going to move forward in a positive, valuable way. We have nothing to do to advance our characters in end game in any real meaningful way. What worries me is that Anet is so afraid of making real changes to shake this game up, we may be stuck in the holding pattern forever. This is the last year for me. If we don't get a REAL expansion (higher lvls, new gear, new ways to advance our character NOT by grinding) then I will be moving to ESO permanently.

I honestly don't mean this to sound insulting, but you may as well save yourself a year and leave now. What you're hoping for goes completely against the design philosophy of the entire Guild Wars franchise. GW1 never got a level or gear increase in its entire lifetime, and GW2 has only had the addition of ascended gear. It's highly unlikely we'll get a gear/level treadmill now. It's not a 'holding pattern' it's the design model Anet have chosen to use, and on top of that I think a lot of people would be extremely unhappy if they changed it now because that focus on horizontal progression, which was a big part of the games advertising, is what attracted them to the game.

Also I'd be wary of moving to ESO if that's your criteria. They stopped increasing the Champion Point cap a few releases ago (both the maximum gear level and the number of CP you can allocate) and rumour has it they're looking at removing CP entirely, or fundamentally changing it and what they'll replace it with is unknown. It may be better for players like you, since some people currently complain that CP not only makes almost all existing content trivial but also causes diminishing returns where the higher you go the less you get in return for your efforts. But it might also be like the One Tamriel update where they choose to solve the problem by shifting more towards a horizontal progression model like GW2 uses.

Anets policy is simple, the less we say, the less can be held againt us.They did give us a rough sketch.One more episode for season 4, and then we have season 5 straight after, probably with another 6 episodes. Meaning the next expansion wont be before late 2020.

@"zealex.9410" said:[insert "they tried to communicate but we were rude so they stopped" here]Seriously, they never communicated enough. Even the original problem that ended up with the infamous MO's "no-communication communication policy" came from them not talking to the community.

It's not that they "promised byt didn't deliver". It's because they talked about some things, and then went silent. When people asked about maybe some updates or something, all they could hear were crickets. That is what caused the kittenstorm then. But of course Anet misread the situation and decided that it was their first attempts at communication that wee at fault, not the silence afterwards.

They did try to change that several times since then, but the main problem currently is that they simply do not have anyone that could do it. The devs are busy with their own stuff, and they aren't exactly paid for engaging in community relations. Gaile has other duties. So all we have left is the big boss himself (who, unfortunately doesn't seem to be a people person, and is also probably busy). Also, they don't like to talk about anything with even a hint of negative connotations, unless they have to (and often not even then).

As long as they won't hire someone professional to deal with this stuff (which i find unlikely at this point, even if it seems sensible to me), i wouldn't expect any meaningful changes. At best we might get occasional AMAs, that both aren't going to tell us much, and will keep avoiding any touchy subjects like a plague.

I personally feel that currently Anet talks to us regularly enough. Honestly what is this topic even about? People just like to randomly complain sometimes smh.

@"wickedkae.4980" said:You're not alone OP. As a vet, I also worry that this game is not going to move forward in a positive, valuable way. We have nothing to do to advance our characters in end game in any real meaningful way. What worries me is that Anet is so afraid of making real changes to shake this game up, we may be stuck in the holding pattern forever. This is the last year for me. If we don't get a REAL expansion (higher lvls, new gear, new ways to advance our character NOT by grinding) then I will be moving to ESO permanently.

Completely arbitrarily forcing me to redo all my 20-30 ascended gear sets for slightly higher numbers on them, making older content even easier than it already is, is possible the worst move Anet could ever make (and they won't).How that constitutes as real and meaningful progression is beyond me.

Even as a player with multiple legendary armors, which presumably would just be updated to the new cap in such a scenario, that could kill the game for me, just because of how much pointless work it would be still.

Concerning the main topic, I would also really like to know if we are getting another expansion or not as well, together with a very rough eta.The announcement of continuous Living Story indeed was a bit worrysome, as that type of release doesn't deliver what I'm interested in, with new ways to play the game (Specialisations, expansion mechanics etc) being more important to me than "just" new content to be played for a day or two.

Yh I remember why I left this game...Hopefully tomorrow brings something fresh, otherwise I'm out lol

they could learn a bit from FFXIV and Square Enix. They are a beautiful company, even if they don't deliver all the time, you can see they really care. So many talks about what will come, roadmaps, even huge events for fans where even lead game designer and CEO are present. You can see in the way higher positioned persons interact with the community how much they love their work and how much they want the success but yet how down to earth they are. That's the company that has FUN. Hard working people that want to live in the world they built.

It is not all happy glasses and all good, but it is miles ahead of Anet that can't even speak up and interact with us in a meaningful way. When reading the reviews on Glassdoor https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/ArenaNet-Reviews-E255820.htm all has more sense. Their own people are lost.

• "Managers of all levels need to get more involved with the development process, and offer actual direction, as opposed to ignoring projects until the last minute then coming in and asking for huge, sweeping changes to things that have been locked down for months."

• "There are major problems currently in middle management, making it an exceptionally stressful and demoralizing place to work."

• "Moves fast, breaks things, but does not necessarily go back to fix them. This leads to a lot of hard to decipher legacy products, code, and design.Lack of communication between teamsTheir production style creates knowledge and specialty silos which does not promote cross-discipline work. Like, artists not knowing what designers are doing, or server programmers do not know what other client programmers are … "

• "There are some communication problems within production and a general "go with the flow" attitude about planning that forces a lot of unnecessary re-scoping of even the smallest parts. Nothing unusual or extreme by industry standards but definitely something to consider. We can always be better."

• "A little more focus on transparency and communication. There is a lot being done by the higher-ups to improve, but there is work to be done in middle-management and overall studio culture."

It is the serious problem with communication. Not only to us but in their own house. If they can't clean their own house, how do you expect they will do any better here?

To not be all negative, there are positive things people who worked with Anet said:

• "Some amazing minds without "shoulder chips" to worry about, ArenaNet is a highly art-centric and creative work environment. There are a no-crunch focus and family-friendly mentality that is hard to find elsewhere in the industry."

• "Hardly any crunch hours, you can take breaks."

• "-Great place to work. People who work here are very nice and helpful"

• "- This company is one of the most diverse, accepting places I have ever worked. Tons of women and minorities in prominent leadership positions.Extremely friendly team. Everyone is here to help if you just ask.A legitimately anti-crunch studio. Work-life balance is a clear priority.Great product with a passionate fan base."

...not sure how I like them not having crunch hours. It seems that development is so slow because of the combination of 2 things: bad communication flow and too laid-back working hours.

Maybe I don't worry as much about regular updates on what's coming next and further into the future because I don't commit myself to a specific game and expect it to hold my attention indefinitely. I play because I enjoy it and if I'm not enjoying it I simply won't log in until I want to. If there's nothing coming which interests me that just means once I get through the stuff I have to do now I'll spend more time playing other games instead. (Maybe that's why I never got into subscription MMOs, I feel like they're built to encourage that kind of commitment, because of course they lose money much more directly if you're not logging in regularly.)

Of course there's some risk to Anet there - if I lose interest in the game for long enough I may not come back when there is new content. (Although I'm also not likely to go through all the hassle of leaving Facebook groups and pages and cancelling email updates just because I've lost interest in a game, so chances are I'd hear about it.) But that's Anet's problem and something I assume they've considered as part of their communication strategy. And if not it's a great opportunity to let the money do the talking - they'll see sales fall off because people aren't logging in to see the stuff they sell and if that doesn't get the message through then I highly doubt anything I can say will help them.

In this case I think it also helps that I like the living story and see expansions as basically a season bundled together which I have to pay extra for, so all I really need to know at this point is another season is coming after this one. Since I won't have to pay extra unless I miss the release window (which is unusual even for me now they're a few months long) I don't need to know exactly what's in it because I don't need to decide if I want to buy it or not. I can wait until it's released and then see which parts I want to play.

@"ProverbsofHell.2307" said:I personally feel that currently Anet talks to us regularly enough. Honestly what is this topic even about? People just like to randomly complain sometimes smh.

TBH.. I think what you say is true, but bourne out of personal frustration with the game, the decision making and direction sometimes and that's perfectly normal.As a counter ANET stay silent until they are ready to push narrative out to spare them from having to backpeddle when issues arise. Lets be honest ANET are never going to please or appease everyone all the time.

That said there does seem to be a growing desire to at least hear from ANET in respect of.. "is another expansion on the cards or has that dog had it's day?" If an expansion is not in the pipeworks or being planned then perhaps we can all have a clear view of the direction of the game and whether it will be the LS small content updates that will carry the torch going forward.I don't think we need dates or specifics, just some clarification on the actual topic of "expansion yay or nay"... it is whether ANET is willing to address that question or not - my personal feeling is they wont especially if it's a nay.