Guild Wars 2 on Reddit Blackout

[Astralporing.1957]

5 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Let's see.

Reddit users: 861 million. 

Apollo users: 1 - 1,5 million. 

I'm close with 0.001%. 

Also: why didn't I get a notification for your post? 

Now, compare with official reddit app users, compare the use of third apps among the subreddit mods (and then see how it looks for mods of big subreddits - as far as i know moderation of biggest subreddits is being done almost exclusively by third party apps)

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Just now, Astralporing.1957 said:

Now, compare with official reddit app users, compare the use of third apps among the subreddit mods (and then see how it looks for mods of big subreddits - as far as i know moderation of biggest subreddits is being done almost exclusively by third party apps)

All 5 mods that rule over most of Reddit? 

[voidek.5738]

Guild Wars 1 reddit is back. When will 2?

Edited June 17, 2023 by voidek.5738

[Kenzo.6124]

It’s funny but mostly terrifying to see how many people think about reddit as a „product“. The product is its users and their data. They just don’t want to share their crops anymore. But with the same strike they eradicate everything what makes reddit better than other social media platforms. It’s just about maximizing profits and in some months reddit isn’t more than an advertisement board like Facebook 

[TheGrimoire.4039]

1 hour ago, voidek.5738 said:

Guild Wars 1 reddit is back. When will 2?

r/GuildWars2 has gone private indefinitely in protest of Reddit's recent behavior, open disdain for their userbase, and planned changes to the API, which will be heavily impacting third party tools, accessibility and moderation ability. Join requests will not be handled/answered. For further info, check https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xh1e7/an_open_letter_on_the_state_of_affairs_regarding/ . Feel free to join the subreddit discord instead (https://discord.com/invite/guildwars2).

 

It's what it says now, so I guess bye bye GW2 reddit.

[Alarm.7286]

I was saying this from the beginning, that this game should sustain itself and don't rely heavily on users guide to be playable without frustration of getting lost.

it comes to the point you search the internet more than you play the game or you will get stuck.

[Bladestrom.6425]

54 minutes ago, Alarm.7286 said:

I was saying this from the beginning, that this game should sustain itself and don't rely heavily on users guide to be playable without frustration of getting lost.

it comes to the point you search the internet more than you play the game or you will get stuck.

so you want anet to spend resources writing endless articles in game instead of providing content and letting the community document what they wish?  Documenting software died 20 years ago.

[Alarm.7286]

Spoiler

  

50 minutes ago, vesica tempestas.1563 said:

so you want anet to spend resources writing endless articles in game instead of providing content and letting the community document what they wish?  Documenting software died 20 years ago.

You said it, that is very old approach. it could be as simple as visual hints which can be worth thousand words...

All those piles of achievements can have a simple visual hints which player can toggle ON or OFF, and then you won't need to run in circles flipping every rock in the game solving riddles.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

2 hours ago, TheGrimoire.4039 said:

r/GuildWars2 has gone private indefinitely in protest of Reddit's recent behavior, open disdain for their userbase, and planned changes to the API, which will be heavily impacting third party tools, accessibility and moderation ability. Join requests will not be handled/answered. For further info, check https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xh1e7/an_open_letter_on_the_state_of_affairs_regarding/ . Feel free to join the subreddit discord instead (https://discord.com/invite/guildwars2).

 

It's what it says now, so I guess bye bye GW2 reddit.

Until the powermods are removed and I can not wait to eat pop corn when they loose their little virtual fiefdom.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

My source for this is basically Louis Rossman, but as I understand the big problem here is Reddit has created a "screw you" price for their API access  For the numbers, I'm referring to this source.  To quote:

Quote

I'll cut to the chase: 50 million requests costs $12,000, a figure far more than I ever could have imagined.

Apollo made 7 billion requests last month, which would put it at about 1.7 million dollars per month, or 20 million US dollars per year. Even if I only kept subscription users, the average Apollo user uses 344 requests per day, which would cost $2.50 per month, which is over double what the subscription currently costs, so I'd be in the red every month.

I'm deeply disappointed in this price. Reddit iterated that the price would be A) reasonable and based in reality, and B) they would not operate like Twitter. Twitter's pricing was publicly ridiculed for its obscene price of $42,000 for 50 million tweets. Reddit's is still $12,000. For reference, I pay Imgur (a site similar to Reddit in user base and media) $166 for the same 50 million API calls.

As for the pricing, despite claims that it would be based in reality, it seems anything but. Less than 2 years ago they said they crossed $100M in quarterly revenue for the first time ever, if we assume despite the economic downturn that they've managed to do that every single quarter now, and for your best quarter, you've doubled it to $200M. Let's also be generous and go far, far above industry estimates and say you made another $50M in Reddit Premium subscriptions. That's $550M in revenue per year, let's say an even $600M. In 2019, they said they hit 430 million monthly active users, and to also be generous, let's say they haven't added a single active user since then (if we do revenue-per-user calculations, the more users, the less revenue each user would contribute). So at generous estimates of $600M and 430M monthly active users, that's $1.40 per user per year, or $0.12 monthly. These own numbers they've given are also seemingly inline with industry estimates as well.

Of course, my source has more sources littered in its content if you don't want to just take my word for it.  To explain a term, the "screw you" price is a practice where a company doesn't want to offer a service, but due to various outside pressures and regulations they are either obligated to, or would face harsh social criticism for not having such a service.  So, to subtly discourage people from this service, they hike the price up to ridiculous levels in the hopes that nobody would bother paying for it.  Reddit is doing this with their API access, wherein they've decided to charge 20 times what it would actually cost an API program to function, and have also blocked out-of-server ads to alleviate such a cost.  This is way beyond the pale, since reddit could've easily charged just x2 or x3 the price, made a profit, and everyone would've walked away happy because of how cheap it appeared to be.

I'm in the camp that most resources should be held in-house somewhere.  The internet is becoming more transient by the day, and I expect this issue to get worse.

[Zok.4956]

3 hours ago, Alarm.7286 said:

I was saying this from the beginning, that this game should sustain itself and don't rely heavily on users guide to be playable without frustration of getting lost.

What does this have to do with the Reddit blackout?

 

3 hours ago, Alarm.7286 said:

It comes to the point you search the internet more than you play the game or you will get stuck.

Just use the official forum and the official wiki. This gives you a whole lot of resources and information about the game.

The community can continue to use the official GW2-Wiki. It is hosted by ArenaNet for the Guild Wars 2 community to be managed and shaped by the community.

And ArenaNet operates a forum (this here we are reading and writing in) for discussions about GW2 in the community.

It all continues to work as it has for many years because it is independent of Reddit.

So, if the Guildwars2-Reddit stays closed. No problem. Use this forum and the official wiki. 

AND: The GW2 Wiki community team (GW2 players like us) is doing a great job, but would definitely appreciate more helpers adding content.

 

[SlayerXX.7138]

18 hours ago, ShadowCatz.8437 said:

Please, don't start a forum war in this thread!

To late! New expansion dropped. Forum Wars 2 End of Subreddits.

[Astralporing.1957]

3 hours ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

Until the powermods are removed and I can not wait to eat pop corn when they loose their little virtual fiefdom.

So, you want this subreddit to close due to the mess removing all decent mods would cause? Because i am 100% sure that no matter how bad you consider the current ones, the ones that would replace them would be much worse.

[CETheLucid.3964]

29 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

So, you want this subreddit to close due to the mess removing all decent mods would cause? Because i am 100% sure that no matter how bad you consider the current ones, the ones that would replace them would be much worse.

Mods don't make the community. The users make the community. Mods are a very small part of that. In this instance, a very small part holding the rest of the community hostage.

[Draygo.9473]

I agree with locking a forum for a day or two to make a statement and to make the community aware of a huge issue. but ultimately its up to the users, not mods to determine if we want to continue supporting reddit or not. I see no difference right now between what reddit is doing and what the mods are doing, both are depriving the user.

I am personally boycotting reddit over this, but thats my personal decision. They don't get my traffic and they dont' get my money. But I will not force someone else to abide by my decision. 

[SnowdropFox.2456]

You:

12 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Let's see.

Reddit users: 861 million. 

Apollo users: 1 - 1,5 million. 

I'm close with 0.1%.

Also you, before you conveniently edited your post, as you can see in my quote:

17 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

As far as I know, only like 0.001% of Reddit users use Third Party apps.  

You are so close, that you are only off by a factor of 100 and Android doesn't even exist apparently, but I'll even grant you the 0.1% figure.

 

Reddit has approximately 52-55 mil daily active users. Now if you'd say that mostly everyone who downloads an app is also usually actively using it on their phone, minus a certain percentage of dead/unused phones obviously, and if you acknowledge that Android exists, then even your edited 0.1% is nowhere near realistic.

I can't check the iOS store, but Android alone has the following apps:

• RiF ~ 5m+ downloads

• Boost for reddit ~ 1m+ downloads

• Sync for reddit ~ 1m+ downloads 

• BaconReader for reddit ~ 1m+ downloads

• Relay for reddit ~ 1m+ downloads

• Now for reddit ~ 500k+ downloads

And at least 5 smaller apps with 100k+ downloads each, so another 500k+.

In conclusion Android alone has 10+ million third party downloads and I highly doubt, that Apollo is the only alternative on iOS.

Edited June 17, 2023 by SnowdropFox.2456

[b k.1648]

GW2, fortunately, doesn't need Reddit to any great extent. It had some use for information that wasn't appropriate to post here or on the wiki, but it's replaceable. As a venue for discussion it relies on its users operating in good faith, which is too much to ask with larger communities and controversial threads.
So, I'm fine with walking away from it permanently.

[Krzysztof.5973]

34 minutes ago, Ben K.6238 said:

GW2, fortunately, doesn't need Reddit to any great extent. It had some use for information that wasn't appropriate to post here or on the wiki, but it's replaceable. As a venue for discussion it relies on its users operating in good faith, which is too much to ask with larger communities and controversial threads.
So, I'm fine with walking away from it permanently.

It's nice to have different avenues for gw2 players to express their opinions without fear of being silenced. A ton of comments have been removed from the forums over the years.   

[Neo K.9145]

Hello there. As you might have guessed from the name I am one of the moderating team over at r/GuildWars2

I've seen a lot of misinformation, lies, and slander in this thread and I want to discuss a few things and then I'll talk about the future of the subreddit.

First off. The mod team of r/GuildWars2 was at most 6 active people in recent years. 2 have already decided to resign, 1 isn't active. Of the three of us that still remain only one or two might stick around. None of us are these mods with dozens or hundreds of subs, most of us only mod one or two GW2 related subs. Even the Discord isn't under our control. Guild Wars 1's sub, GW2DyeJob and GWGW are on their own as well. GW2DyeJob may be shutting down for good as well as there is only one mod left and they are considering leaving Reddit as well.

Our entire mod team relies on third party tools and third party apps to do our moderating because the mod tools that reddit proves are absolute garbage. Yes the community makes the subreddit but it's the moderators that keep it clean. The third party apps have infinitely superior mod tools that allow us to do our job quick and easy on mobile and the mod toolbox on desktop gives us many necessary features to make moderating smooth. 

I volunteered to be a mod because I was disgusted with the amount of hate speech that was being used around the sub at the time and I wrote new rules against hate speech and I feel that I've done a great job on making the sub a safer space for all.

In that time I have gotten vicious hate mail and even stalked a couple times but honestly worse than that, I've had almost every single story release spoiled for me one way or another since many people can't follow the kitten rules when it comes to spoilers. So while you all are enjoying the new content when it releases on tuesday, I'm getting the story spoiled for me watching the modqueue on my phone or computer protecting others from spoilers. I even had Spider-Man No Way Home spoiled for me thanks to spammers. Few other TV shows and movies as well. 

I've seen and read unbelievable disgusting things that wouldn't even show up on r/wtf but it's reported and mods job to deal with it.

And in all this time I have not been paid or in anyway by ArenaNet or Reddit. My only goal is to make the sub safe and clean for others. We also have zero communication with ANet other then new devs will ask for a dev flair on the sub. I wish we had communication and could work together but that's never been the case while I've been around. 

Reddits crackdown on third party apps and tools is not just an attack on those and the moderators who do this job for free. It's also an attack on the users and the content of Reddit. No longer is reddit interested in being a site for the free exchange of information and communities to form to work together. They are focused entirely on Reddit as a product working towards the upcoming IPO and that means focusing on making money from every single user. That's why even though it only costs reddit $10 million a year for all the third party access, they want 10x that from third party apps because they have to show a profit and Reddit isn't profitable. 

That means more focus on profits, so more ads, possibly features being removed and locked to reddit premium. The CEO has said he looks at Elon Musk's actions at Twitter as a blueprint for Reddit so I wouldn't be surprised if he's already planning on promoting Reddit Premium posts and comments above standard users or even worse ideas. 

The mod team was in complete agreement about the blackout and all of us personally believe the site wide blackout should have been permanent from the start as the start and being temporary cost the protest dearly.

Now as far as the future of the subreddit goes. As mentioned two of the active mods have already left and two more may be leaving as well but are undecided. There is currently much discussion about what to do and we are aware that as a small sub any protest on our level does not mean much but we joined in at the start as it was the right thing to do.

One thing I will say is regardless of what happens at some point the subreddit will be made visible again so all of the existing content can be seen. As far as continuing the community, I don't have an answer for that right now as we are trying to figure out where to take things from here. But I felt like responding to this post because I miss the sub as well along with others that are still locked down but I also desperately want Reddit to backtrack on these horrible decisions. 

Edited June 18, 2023 by Neo K.9145
typos

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

7 hours ago, CETheLucid.3964 said:

Mods don't make the community. The users make the community. Mods are a very small part of that. In this instance, a very small part holding the rest of the community hostage.

It takes both.  A community without good moderation will fall to outside attack, and a bad moderator can just as easily destroy one.

Let me put it this way: you may have complaints about the current reddit modship, but at least they have a conscience against price gouging.  The jannies that will replace them will be brown noses with super do-it-for-free powers that have no qualms about price gouging.  

[Lanfear De Noir.9127]

GW2 Reddit has had invaluable information for me on numerous occasions, from my having trouble installing the game to finding out how mounts leveled up skills (WIKI does NOT give this info, it just tells you to do it... but how?). EG: I did not know you had to do the story, quests, and side quests of that particular expansion to level your mounts... simple... but not stated. Yet Reddit had the answer for me.

I am a new GW2 player and not having Reddit or something else to take over will mean that there will be a lack of info available... Many times info I found on Reddit was old but still relevant. So an archive is needed so people will still be able to use it. 

 

Edited June 18, 2023 by Lanfear De Noir.9127

[Jin.8501]

On 6/16/2023 at 11:04 PM, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/reddit-ceo-will-change-rules-to-make-mods-less-powerful-2023-6%3famp

To be honest this is the best things to happen.  There have been to many stories of powermods, and I would assume the general reddit user does not approve of the black out. 

Yep I don't approve it and dislike some of the mods abusing their powers (In general, not aiming this to GW2 sub in particular). Essentially creating subs to cults rather than places for discussion. It's rare to see a sub with people allowed to have "wrong" opinions. 

Edited June 18, 2023 by Jin.8501

[Syvaris Laskaris.5247]

11 hours ago, Neo K.9145 said:

Hello there. As you might have guessed from the name I am one of the moderating team over at r/GuildWars2

Hurry up and cash in your Jannie paycheck while you still can, I'm sure there are a ton of zero's on it.

Edited June 18, 2023 by Syvaris Laskaris.5247

[Noah Salazar.5430]

what is reddit? i heard of 4chan but

[Cyanophyta.6345]

11 hours ago, Neo K.9145 said:

Hello there. As you might have guessed from the name I am one of the moderating team over at r/GuildWars2

I've seen a lot of misinformation, lies, and slander in this thread and I want to discuss a few things and then I'll talk about the future of the subreddit.

First off. The mod team of r/GuildWars2 was at most 6 active people in recent years. 2 have already decided to resign, 1 isn't active. Of the three of us that still remain only one or two might stick around. None of us are these mods with dozens or hundreds of subs, most of us only mod one or two GW2 related subs. Even the Discord isn't under our control. Guild Wars 1's sub, GW2DyeJob and GWGW are on their own as well. GW2DyeJob may be shutting down for good as well as there is only one mod left and they are considering leaving Reddit as well.

Our entire mod team relies on third party tools and third party apps to do our moderating because the mod tools that reddit proves are absolute garbage. Yes the community makes the subreddit but it's the moderators that keep it clean. The third party apps have infinitely superior mod tools that allow us to do our job quick and easy on mobile and the mod toolbox on desktop gives us many necessary features to make moderating smooth. 

I volunteered to be a mod because I was disgusted with the amount of hate speech that was being used around the sub at the time and I wrote new rules against hate speech and I feel that I've done a great job on making the sub a safer space for all.

In that time I have gotten vicious hate mail and even stalked a couple times but honestly worse than that, I've had almost every single story release spoiled for me one way or another since many people can't follow the kitten rules when it comes to spoilers. So while you all are enjoying the new content when it releases on tuesday, I'm getting the story spoiled for me watching the modqueue on my phone or computer protecting others from spoilers. I even had Spider-Man No Way Home spoiled for me thanks to spammers. Few other TV shows and movies as well. 

I've seen and read unbelievable disgusting things that wouldn't even show up on r/wtf but it's reported and mods job to deal with it.

And in all this time I have not been paid or in anyway by ArenaNet or Reddit. My only goal is to make the sub safe and clean for others. We also have zero communication with ANet other then new devs will ask for a dev flair on the sub. I wish we had communication and could work together but that's never been the case while I've been around. 

Reddits crackdown on third party apps and tools is not just an attack on those and the moderators who do this job for free. It's also an attack on the users and the content of Reddit. No longer is reddit interested in being a site for the free exchange of information and communities to form to work together. They are focused entirely on Reddit as a product working towards the upcoming IPO and that means focusing on making money from every single user. That's why even though it only costs reddit $10 million a year for all the third party access, they want 10x that from third party apps because they have to show a profit and Reddit isn't profitable. 

That means more focus on profits, so more ads, possibly features being removed and locked to reddit premium. The CEO has said he looks at Elon Musk's actions at Twitter as a blueprint for Reddit so I wouldn't be surprised if he's already planning on promoting Reddit Premium posts and comments above standard users or even worse ideas. 

The mod team was in complete agreement about the blackout and all of us personally believe the site wide blackout should have been permanent from the start as the start and being temporary cost the protest dearly.

Now as far as the future of the subreddit goes. As mentioned two of the active mods have already left and two more may be leaving as well but are undecided. There is currently much discussion about what to do and we are aware that as a small sub any protest on our level does not mean much but we joined in at the start as it was the right thing to do.

One thing I will say is regardless of what happens at some point the subreddit will be made visible again so all of the existing content can be seen. As far as continuing the community, I don't have an answer for that right now as we are trying to figure out where to take things from here. But I felt like responding to this post because I miss the sub as well along with others that are still locked down but I also desperately want Reddit to backtrack on these horrible decisions. 

I'm going to act in good faith and assume you're actually a reddit mod and not a troll.

 

As you already stated, it matters little whether the mods stay or leave. Eventually, if you refuse to reopen the sub,  you will lose your power as mod and new mods will replace you. Reddit has already stated as much. No sub will shut down because you guys left, don't be arrogant. You can try to spin this any way you want, but taking a sub with 100s of thousands of users hostage because they removed some third party tools that makes your job slightly more difficult makes you a bad person. Ditching the sub and leaving it closed is even worse.

 

You're not the martyr you think you are. If you can't accept the new changes, then get more mods or find new mods that are willing to put up with it. This will eventually happen whether you like it or not. Don't take everyone else hostage. You aren't the lifeblood of the sub, you're just removing the stuff you think is bad from the sub. So if half the mods have already left, why are you keeping the sub closed? Why aren't you trying to find new mods?

 

And personally, I don't believe most reddit mods moderate out of the goodness of their hearts. Maybe you do, but for most, it's because they're addicted to both the website and the feeling of power they get from being moderators. Moral grandstanding and all that.