[Request] It's time for GW2 to have an official Discord server

[Randulf.7614]

Both can exist, but not replacing the Forums. Media is nice, but both distracting and problematic. It also does little to stimulate mature discussion. Something we have nailed perfectly on the forums.

 

[Danikat.8537]

1 hour ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Good luck with that idea!  I can think of several who shouldn't be considered for that role, including myself!

I've used many different forums with community moderation and been a moderator on admin on a few (not GW2 related) and I'm very much of the opinion that wanting to be a moderator should immediately disqualify anyone from doing it.

It sounds like an oxymoron since you can't make someone do what is basically voluntary work, but ideally you want someone who understands how the forum is run and how the community functions but has never seen themselves in a position of authority within it. Picking people who want to be in charge (especially the ones who keep on and on asking) is up there with the admin only making their friends moderators or assigning it based on post count/frequency as ways to get moderators who see it as proof they're better than everyone else and absuse the moderation tools to enforce that (or just to troll people they don't like).

In extreme cases it can and has killed entire forums, even entire communities. In less drastic cases it just drives people away and leaves that little clique on their own while everyone else moves to a different forum to avoid them. (Sometimes it gets silly, I've encountered some fandoms where you can literally be blocked from signing up on one forum because you're a member of a different one they don't get along with.)

Having said all that I think for official forums run by companies with the means and incentive to do it hiring professional community managers is probably better. Especially since they can also do other jobs like track, compile and summarise feedback for other departments to use without all the individual developers having to spend time trawling through the forum.

[Nine Inch Snails.7963]

16 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

 In less drastic cases it just drives people away and leaves that little clique on their own while everyone else moves to a different forum to avoid them.

I think some of that already happens here.  There are a few members that seem to want to patrol the forum and try to dictate what should and should not be posted.  I see it happen regularly with their comments.   I think when that does happen it does turn people off from posting.  Maybe it is just me but this forum does seem slower these days.  Or maybe there just isn't anything new and exciting to talk about I guess or both.   🤷‍♀️

[Linken.6345]

2 minutes ago, Nine Inch Snails.7963 said:

I think some of that already happens here.  There are a few members that seem to want to patrol the forum and try to dictate what should and should not be posted.  I see it happen regularly with their comments.   I think when that does happen it does turn people off from posting.  Maybe it is just me but this forum does seem slower these days.  Or maybe there just isn't anything new and exciting to talk about I guess or both.   🤷‍♀️

Aint it more this have been posted 2000 times already and your spin on it add nothing new so go read the earlier threads usualy?

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

10 hours ago, Nine Inch Snails.7963 said:

I think some of that already happens here.  There are a few members that seem to want to patrol the forum and try to dictate what should and should not be posted.  I see it happen regularly with their comments.   I think when that does happen it does turn people off from posting.  Maybe it is just me but this forum does seem slower these days.  Or maybe there just isn't anything new and exciting to talk about I guess or both.   🤷‍♀️

The more people policing that way ... the moar ideas will stop poping up and the more people and Devs will gravitate towards Reddit ...were thankfully , they have the ability to "get even" with those people that policed them in the forums 😛

 

(brb)

[Khisanth.2948]

25 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

Aint it more this have been posted 2000 times already and your spin on it add nothing new so go read the earlier threads usualy?

There is also "I am going to make suggestions on drastic changes while being completely clueless about the subject"

[Khisanth.2948]

6 minutes ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

The more people policing that way ... the moar ideas will stop poping up and the more people and Devs will gravitate towards Reddit ...were thankfully , they have the ability to "get even" with those people that policed them in the forums 😛

 

(brb)

So what you're saying is you haven't visited reddit in years?

[Xenesis.6389]

They already have their official discord group, you're just not invited to it.

😏🍿

[Nine Inch Snails.7963]

1 hour ago, Linken.6345 said:

Aint it more this have been posted 2000 times already and your spin on it add nothing new so go read the earlier threads usualy?

I think it is more about creating an uninviting atmosphere here.  When someone fairly new to the game or maybe just the forum posts and gets chastised with "Use the search!!" , "Belongs in QOL mega thread,"  and such they may be reluctant to come back.  Most of us that have been around for awhile are used to it.   But unfortunately for the newer people it probably isn't very welcoming when they run across that.  

That and a moderator stated that if they think a post requires moderation to report it instead of calling it out in a thread.  Yet these people continue call it out in threads regularly.

But whatever.  It's not my place to try to improve things here. However it is rather common outside of the official forums to see people suggesting to avoid the official forums.  I think there is a valid reason that is suggested.  Just my thoughts on the issue. 

Edited April 26, 2023 by Nine Inch Snails.7963

[Cernoch.8524]

I dont see any reason to do that, Anet would not communicate more than now anyway so why force people to use an app to read something they can read on the forum? Sooner or later it would look same as here except here its somehow easier to look for topics and news. If you dont want to upload picture of a bug, which takes literally few seconds, dont worry, someone else will do it instead.

[Sobx.1758]

3 hours ago, Mantrix.8329 said:

Moderators can be from the community.

Which still makes it a community driven server, not an official one. Either way, I don't see the point of this request.

[Lux.1308]

34 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Which still makes it a community driven server, not an official one. Either way, I don't see the point of this request.

I don't see your point. Moderation is not the drive of the community. It's communication, feedback collection, event organising and better reach of players that a company can use and many do so.

[Sobx.1758]

6 minutes ago, Mantrix.8329 said:

I don't see your point. Moderation is not the drive of the community. It's communication, feedback collection, event organising and better reach of players that a company can use and many do so.

And you think moderation of the channels doesn't give direction to any of those? Not only that, but if you're somehow dissatisfied with "communication, feedback collection, event organising and (...) reach of players", I see no reason to assume any of it will magically change or improve -in your subjective view- simply by... adding a discord channel. Whatever could be posted/moderated/communicated/organized there, can also be done here. You like discord, cool. Clearly despite liking discord, you are able to type out your thoughts on the forum as well, as evident by existence of this thread. So yeah, I still don't see the point of this request and for now your response didn't clear anything out for me.

Edited April 26, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Swagger.1459]

7 hours ago, Mantrix.8329 said:

I don't see any collection of feedback of new or upcoming features organised by community managers. 

Welcome to GW2! These are your feedback and upcoming features sources...

 

Guild Wars 2 | Play for Free | MMORPG

Dev Tracker - Guild Wars 2 Forums

 

Best of luck on your journey through Tyria!

[Khisanth.2948]

Hmm ... does this thread qualify as a QoL suggestion? 😁

 

[Lux.1308]

32 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

And you think moderation of the channels doesn't give direction to any of those? Not only that, but if you're somehow dissatisfied with "communication, feedback collection, event organising and (...) reach of players", I see no reason to assume any of it will magically change or improve -in your subjective view- simply by... adding a discord channel. Whatever could be posted/moderated/communicated/organized there, can also be done here. You like discord, cool. Clearly despite liking discord, you are able to type out your thoughts on the forum as well, as evident by existence of this thread. So yeah, I still don't see the point of this request and for now your response didn't clear anything out for me.

I was talking about mods and not community managers.

I don't think that it's good to see 99.99% of the time community managers posting and not developers/team leads. It used to be a norm to have dev. AMA series on the GW2 Reddit after new patches and they didn't use official forums. It was time when we were able to know what shaped specific changes to the game/story. I'm missing that.

Other thing. When news release on guildwars2.com website, there is no way to comment them, nor it is guaranteed for it to appear on the forums officially, making it not easy to respond to and people have to create separate topics about it that often repeat.

For example Chromium Embedded Framework update released and there is not a single forum post in News and Announcements section about it.

Edited April 27, 2023 by Mantrix.8329
Added opinion about Chromium Embedded Framework news

[Swagger.1459]

9 minutes ago, Mantrix.8329 said:

I was talking about mods and not community managers.

I don't think that it's good to see 99.99% of the time community managers posting and not developers/team leads. It used to be a norm to have dev. AMA series on the GW2 Reddit after new patches and they didn't use official forums. It was time when we were able to know what shaped specific changes to the game/story. I'm missing that.

Other thing. When news release on guildwars2.com website, there is no way to comment them, nor it is guaranteed for it to appear on the forums officially, making it not easy to respond to and people have to create separate topics about it that often repeat.

For example Chromium Embedded Framework update released and there is not a single forum post in News and Announcements section about it.

And you think shutting down the official forums and using an 3rd party platform instead will meet your desires? 
 

Anet has had a policy in place for a long time now about communication. Things have to be vetted first. Also, the devs don’t need the constant abuse from the unsavories that seem to occupy 90% of posts when a dev arrives. The forums are bad enough as is with all the constant whining. 

The devs don’t need to waste additional time with over-explaining things on Reddit, or anywhere else, just to appease a couple hundred people. 
 

Comment on stuff by making your own thread, that’s how it works. 

[Lux.1308]

2 minutes ago, Swagger.1459 said:

The devs don’t need to waste additional time with over-explaining things on Reddit, or anywhere else, just to appease a couple hundred people. 

Communication is not appease, the problem is it's done via other channels and not forums.

[Swagger.1459]

3 minutes ago, Mantrix.8329 said:

Communication is not appease, the problem is it's done via other channels and not forums.

The devs communicate here, you’re just not paying attention to it. 
 

Your request isn’t going to happen for a multitude of reasons. You should move on to more productive ideas I think. 

[Lux.1308]

7 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Is it? I think they already choose Twitter for that. Plus its linked in here for forum people that may not even check Twitter so there is a double link already in place. Would we all like to see more postings? Yes. Do we believe that would occur more on Discord? No.

Soon we should not see Twitter live-feed on forums as it costs now. Access to Twitter API live-feed available for Twitter Enterprise API packages start at $42,000 per month for its lowest subscription tier and goes up to $210,000 per month totalling up to $2.5 million per year.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

38 minutes ago, Mantrix.8329 said:

For example Chromium Embedded Framework update released and there is not a single forum post in News and Announcements section about it.

But, there is a whole News Blog article about it.  (Link to it in the Twitter feed at right, as well.)  https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/inside-arenanet-chromium-embedded-framework-in-guild-wars-2/

[Lux.1308]

3 minutes ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

But, there is a whole News Blog article about it.  (Link to it in the Twitter feed at right, as well.)  https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/inside-arenanet-chromium-embedded-framework-in-guild-wars-2/

As I said this is not a forum post. Can't respond to it.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Sigh.  Create a thread, or post in an existing one, and give your feedback.  Or respond to it on the Official Twitter post.   fps

Edited April 27, 2023 by Inculpatus cedo.9234

[ShadowCatz.8437]

6 hours ago, Mantrix.8329 said:

@Zephire.8049 I agree with many of your points but as I said, media embedding is very bad with current forums, so I don't see it useful in modern times.

I think you don't understand why this forum have less "easy" way to integrate media with only one click as on the old forum there where sometimes too much of just meme images (large images that really didn't contribute to discussion or just made discussion to derail).
Here at least most videos are relevant to what it being discussed and images are rather sparse, so mods don't have to lock down threads because of 50 memes with the size of an elephant competing about attention or gifs that make your eyes hurt.

 

[Sobx.1758]

45 minutes ago, Mantrix.8329 said:

As I said this is not a forum post. Can't respond to it.

So you can create a thread about official discord channel but you somehow can't make a thread to comment on the Chromium news? You're trying to create problems where there's none. You'd rather write 5 posts how you can't possibly comment on it instead of making one post/thread to actually comment on it.

And I still fail to see how discord fits in any of that.

Edited April 27, 2023 by Sobx.1758