Does Guild Wars 2 have a Community Manager?

Warframe has Rebecca Ford; Path of Exile has Bex (currently on leave).

The original Guild Wars had Gaile Gray, who would often appear in Lion's Arch International District 01 and just talk to players there (you can see partial transcripts of those conversations archived on the wiki).

Notice how all those examples feature people who interact with the playerbase normally, outside of big reveals or "breaking news"-like announcements. Many, if not most of Gaile's appearances in game where in character and were more small talk than anything big about Guild Wars.

Meanwhile, GW2 has...? Originally Regina Buenaobra was the Community Manager, then Martin Kerstein took over the role of coordinator of the Community Manager team, and then he was fired. Now, we have a team of marketing people (Stéphane is listed on the wiki as "Content Marketing Manager", Rubi also identifies as "Content Marketing Manager"), so it looks like ArenaNet has a lot of people to talk to the press. But what about the community? Is there anyone to talk to us?

It's odd to see a game like Guild Wars 2 without a community manager.

If you read their User pages, some indicate how to interact with them.
I'm guessing the official positions of 'Community Manager' have been rolled into the Marketing Team.
I'd also guess Stephane is the closest thing we have.

Inculpatus cedo.9234 and Illconceived Was Na.9781are actually the closest we get :)

Lol. Not even close.I wish I had the information to share with others.

@Acheron.4731 said:Inculpatus cedo.9234 and Illconceived Was Na.9781are actually the closest we get :)

Surrre. :lol:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I'm guessing the official positions of 'Community Manager' have been rolled into the Marketing Team.

I'd also guess Stephane is the closest thing we have.

What about Rubi Bayer?

Rubi is part of the same Marketing Team.

We don't have one

Since GW2 has the friendliest community ever, it doesn't need one. ;)

I don't know their exact titles, but Rubi Bayer and Stephane Lo Presti (unsure of his spelling, appologies if wrong) are prob pretty close in function.

Tbh does GW really need one? CMs usually share infos and/or interact with the community.

The closest we get are faceless blogposts and words written by a red username.

@borgs.6103 said:Since GW2 has the friendliest community ever, it doesn't need one. ;)

riiiiight.

I asked this before, it didn't go far.I don't think we really have one, now, which is a shame.Be nice to have someone who could pop into game and chat off the cuff, not because they are streaming.Any takers....?

You can talk to Rubi when she is in-game. She always seems happy to have a chat.

So, we don't have community communications. We only have marketing.Why that does not surprise me at all.

@Astralporing.1957 said:So, we don't have community communications. We only have marketing.Why that does not surprise me at all.

About as surprising as people who have spent the entire lifetime of the game complaining about it.

Stephane lo Presti is doing the work of post news updates and forum stuff.

"community manager" become a redudant stuff, because normally the base player wants responses from devs. probably the new focus is the "marketing team" building bridges from players to devs.

They should hire one of us, someone who knows the community in all its facets. We would also know how to talk to the players, personally I'd want someone with a good sense of humor who can "Troll" us like we troll theme. How cool would it be if we could have a Community manager who would be as much of a meme lord as we are, or who just randomly appears within your fractals or raids to mess with people.

I feel everyone takes it way too serious which makes people forget these guys are humans too. A community manager who can not only deal with the issues but quell the angst is key, but then I guess A-net doesn't care as much what we think and knows we will mediate ourselves to some degree. I kinda miss Gaile... she was cool and always would talk to us as if we mattered. (I know we don't to a company/cooperation, and are just dollar signs but someone trying to make us feel valued is nice.)

@Yargesh.4965 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:So, we don't have community communications. We only have marketing.Why that does not surprise me at all.

Since they don't know stuff, or are not allowed to talk if they do, a CM kind of just gets to be a whipping magnet. A hapless CM that can't demonstrate they know anything just gets to be a negative.

I would like to see Inculpatus and Illconceived passing along info in exchange for some pay...maybe gems or in-game currency.They spend way more of their free time here answering questions and being helpful than Stephane or Rubi (no offense).

Sometimes it feels like ArenaNet absolutely despises the community that players GW2. I mean...

• They have cancelled the ArenaNet Forum Chats, that were meant to happen monthly.
• They stopped doing the reddit AMAs that used to happen whenever a new Living World episode was released
• The Head of Global Marketing, Mike Silbowitz, was posting often, and then complete silence
• The last Q&A they did was a huge mess
• The closest thing we got to a reply from ArenaNet after the massive letdown that was the Icebrood Saga announcement were some Twitters from Rubi criticising community feedback. The reaction from one former staff member was basically the same, criticizing the players for being disappointed
• Vayne has written many posts about how he believes the Icebrood Saga announcement was not for the existing GW2 community, rather something aimed for new players. Some people have speculated that the release day trailer we will get for the prologue is also not meant for the existing GW2 community. Why is ArenaNet focusing exclusively on trying to reach new players?

The role of a Community Manager consists not only of speaking to the players, but also of listening to them and relaying their feedback to the developers. It feels more and more like ArenaNet doesn't want to hear what we think, or acknowledge we exist at all.

@Astralporing.1957 said:So, we don't have community communications. We only have marketing.Why that does not surprise me at all.

Yeah. I remember how Gaile was proud that she was not PR, and that ArenaNet had a different team for marketing that had nothing to do with her. How the times have changed.

@"Thornwolf.9721" said:They should hire one of us, someone who knows the community in all its facets. We would also know how to talk to the players, personally I'd want someone with a good sense of humor who can "Troll" us like we troll theme. How cool would it be if we could have a Community manager who would be as much of a meme lord as we are, or who just randomly appears within your fractals or raids to mess with people.

Path of Exile's Bex is famous for posting memes and playing with the community on Reddit. I agree with you - taking the interactions between players and developers too seriously is bad for both sides.

Several Devs play weekly, and Rubi plays many of those weeks, and it's broadcast, as well. (See News Blog.)I think many 'projects' are the pet projects of certain 'Devs', and when those Devs leave/move, so does their projects. Perhaps, no one wants to volunteer to take over those 'projects'. Examples: CDIs, AFCs, Dolyak Express, etc.Players asked to have the AMAs removed from Reddit; that happened, and no idea what/who will take over that communication 'project'. (It seemed to be headed up by Mike O'Brien while he was taking on the dual positions as Game Director and President/CEO.)I like Mike Z., but it doesn't seem like public speaking is his forte. Colin was really great at that.

As stated previously: time passes, things change. /shrug

Here's my two cents.Regardless of if you liked her not, Gaile was with a lot of us from the old Guild Wars days, and yes her coming on to the game and chatting did make you feel the company 'cared' and was happy to talk to players. I actually think letting her go so easily was a big mistake.It's different from the streams, and sure a few will 'chat' yeah I get that, but that is to do with content marketing, not customer service.

Gaile left of her own accord. It was her choice. I suppose they could not force her to stay.