ANet's engagement rate with the WvW community through the official forum

[Gauis.2768]

As titled. This information obtained using the Dev Tracker https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discover/6/

and subsequently filtered by Content Type -> Topics -> World vs. World.

https://imgur.com/a/TfITIhl

 

If Anet wants the community to believe that they are looking to gather feedback from the community, I sincerely hope there is more engagement coming from their end. Unless the filter is not working as intended.. the average amount of comments from Anet on posts since the start of the year is an average of 1 per month. Come on.

Posting monthly or quarterly update articles is not engaging the community. Mind you, this is supposed to be the official Guild Wars 2 forum not a newsletter.

There are bound to be tricky topics that can be difficult to address but if you don't utilize this platform to communicate with the players, the issue will only continue to grow and players' resentment will inevitably increase.

 

Just take a look at this thread for example:

Anet posted a thread. Members of the community engaged in a conversation and raised points, questions and doubts on the system. 243 replies in, 1 Anet comment.  On what you might ask? It was to acknowledge a bug report someone mentioned in the comments. No further engagement. And then in a couple of weeks or months Anet will post another update and say that based on feedback gathered they decided that they will now do 'x' and 'y'. Community uproars. Cycle repeats. Can Anet please come forward and tell us how exactly are they expecting members of the community to know that their feedback is actually taken?

 

[Chaba.5410]

Good post.

[ChrisWhitey.9076]

They do read the forums and responses have lead to mob responses so it has not been the best way to respond. We know they check the forums when reading the WvW changes in news posts and other topics so rather than direct replies we see much more detailed responses and WvW visions as a whole. They also check reddit and discord. It is just not cost effective to have someone sit in the forums all day and respond to most posts. They never had that kind of community engagement and looking at there PR and marketing on GW2 as a whole it seems fitting.

[Gauis.2768]

7 hours ago, ChrisWhitey.9076 said:

They do read the forums and responses have lead to mob responses so it has not been the best way to respond. We know they check the forums when reading the WvW changes in news posts and other topics so rather than direct replies we see much more detailed responses and WvW visions as a whole. They also check reddit and discord. It is just not cost effective to have someone sit in the forums all day and respond to most posts. They never had that kind of community engagement and looking at there PR and marketing on GW2 as a whole it seems fitting.

Please show me the mob response you are referring to. Let's say there is a mob response, isn't this the very indication that it is feedback coming from players?  You can argue that it is a loud minority but it is still feedback nonetheless. Skipping this step just because 'mob response' to me is having the same mentality as a defeatist. Refusing to even try to engage and just avoiding the issue. How do you expect things to get better? 

And I think your next point is the greatest problem that the community have. "We know they check the forums when reading the WvW changes in news posts and other topics so rather than direct replies we see much more detailed responses and WvW visions as a whole." How did you come to this conclusion? I can't speak for others but from what I can see there are multiple issues raised on gameplay over the years. Yes, some are rant and gitgud but a large majority of them are outright ignored, never ever discussed upon. Maybe I am missing something but please tell, what WvW visions have you interpretted Anet has for the WvW landscape? Having a 'detailed' response posted in a article and then not further engaging the community is basically the same as a news anchor annoucing news and moving on ignoring whatever the audience have to say. In fact the detailed response may or may not address the issue, may or may not be what the community's concern have been in the first place. To me that's really what is crucial, to engage with your community whether it is difficult or not. Make a poll have a weekly or monthly or even quarterly Q&A. Do not avoid the difficult questions. They may not have the answer to everything, but that is different from not acknowledging to a problem/issue existing.

Lastly, I'm not expecting anyone from Anet to sit on the forums and refresh every other minute. But when the benchmark is so low at an average of 1 post per month, you simply cannot make any argument that they cannot improve from the current state of things.

 

[ChrisWhitey.9076]

51 minutes ago, Gauis.2768 said:

Please show me the mob response you are referring to

sure

Rather than people be critical it ended up being a large list of complaining. I get that people do not like change but they need to sometimes give things a chance to try it out and give a proper response but also some people like their routine style of play ig.

Edited July 23 by ChrisWhitey.9076
Hit enter to early

[Gauis.2768]

Maybe I am looking at it differently from you. Roy's comment is a great example of engaging the community. He read the discussion and the arguments raised by the members. Sure, some of them are indeed critical. Now, if you take a look at the follow up comments of the members which Roy quoted to ask for more details. 

 

Gazrul's

 

Adammantium's

 

Xenesisll's

And Zekent's

They made sound arguments and supported their points from their perspective. Whether or not you and I agree with it doesn't matter. But I fail to see this mob mentality that you are raising. What I see is that an Anet staff engage the members to gather feedback directly. While their thinking on the topic maybe not be aligned. That's the whole idea of gathering feedback by engaging with the community. Which I think is greatly lacking from Anet's end. I'm not going to assume that majority of the posts in the forums are able to make proper level-headed arguments but if you asked I'm sure you can gather more insights than what may seem to be a rambling post.

[ChrisWhitey.9076]

There were good comments in a thread that overall was not as constructive as some we have had. I think the issue is more that there is a lack of communication on the release side for these up coming changes that we could feedback rather than take reactive criticism. The WR had a lot of information before being released but having a discussion about the defense changes and scoring changes would have been better if it was communicated in the gw2 news. I don't hate the idea of devs posting to get answers in the forum but things will get messy when I believe there is no clear vision on what the intended play styles are in the grand vision of WvW. I think we know how things are going and a recent video cleared that up but I don't know if official posts or news will ever be in the plans. That in mind the forms will continue to be polarized at times but I do for the most part enjoy seeing everyone opinions as long as things remains constructive and avoid emotional and angry posting.

[Chaba.5410]

Posters on this forum tend to be far too cynical. That cynicism gets in the way of meaningful dialog.

[Gauis.2768]

I think that's a great point you made. Everything is reactionary now from the players. Not that I don't see people complaining even if we had an upcoming release kind of statement. People are bound to complain and more often than not in a heated manner. Anet does not need to please everyone and that's probably not achievable too. However, I think its possible to open up discussion every now and then. If people want to flame, they deserve to be ignored. But let those with constructive opinion a chance to let their voice be heard and acknowledged.

[Gauis.2768]

Just now, Chaba.5410 said:

Posters on this forum tend to be far too cynical. That cynicism gets in the way of meaningful dialog.

More often than not this is very true... But we shouldn't let a few loud voices represent all stances on a topic. If Anet plays their part and the community continues to be stubborn then I think we deserve it. Takes two hands to clap to improve the current situation. 

[Chaba.5410]

11 minutes ago, Gauis.2768 said:

More often than not this is very true... But we shouldn't let a few loud voices represent all stances on a topic. If Anet plays their part and the community continues to be stubborn then I think we deserve it. Takes two hands to clap to improve the current situation. 

I don't think it is a few loud voices. The cynics have mostly taken over. If you try to discuss through the cynicism, you get accused of being some sort of shill for the game dev.

A typical gamer behavior is to post here when they have a problem or are dissatisfied about something. That's the audience here.

It's not unlike following someone's tag and all they focus on is the negatives and external reasons for a loss.  It brings the whole mood down.

Edited July 23 by Chaba.5410

[RlyOsim.2497]

On 7/23/2024 at 6:16 AM, Chaba.5410 said:

Posters on this forum tend to be far too cynical. That cynicism gets in the way of meaningful dialog.

(imo) The game has taken a nose dive in terms of content and quality over the last 2-3 years. If people are enjoying the game, more power to them, but that people are cynical after the last few years is to be expected, to me at least.

But in relation to OP, they raise a very good point. Like where is this feedback coming from? It does not appear to be from the wider community and stuff like WR, the current boon meta and to some extent the scoring changes really underline this point. Like the feedback they appear to be getting is from 'hardcore' zerg players, why is this the case? How can one subsection of the playerbase dictate the overall direction of the gamemode and then, how can Anet expect changes based on that feedback to be widely well received/improve the health of the gamemode?

But that is just guess work, noone seems to know where the feedback is coming from but it would be nice to have some insights into why these (and future) changes are chosen beyond 'we hope people will enjoy it'.

Edited July 25 by RlyOsim.2497

[Luthan.5236]

It is normal for ArenaNet to not post in the forums. Afaik the devs are free to use the channels they personally like the most (I heard Reddit is used often) - and they do not need to answer at all. For that you usually have Rubi posting every now and then if bigger changes are. But real "conversations" in forums/threads to not happen. They read the feedback though or it is getting relayed to them. We

[Gauis.2768]

1 hour ago, Luthan.5236 said:

It is normal for ArenaNet to not post in the forums. Afaik the devs are free to use the channels they personally like the most (I heard Reddit is used often) - and they do not need to answer at all. For that you usually have Rubi posting every now and then if bigger changes are. But real "conversations" in forums/threads to not happen. They read the feedback though or it is getting relayed to them. We

Not sure if you missed the point, but where is the evidence that they read feedback? How much feedback do they read? How many issues within this forum that are raised are actually addressed? What about those issues unanswered, are they read? How do the users know that their feedback is actually read? You mentioned devs are free to use the different channels, sure by all means nothing is stopping them. If you can gather the data from the past year to show the level of interaction on the other platforms, please do, if not your point may as well be moot with no substantial data to back it up. Mind you, we are only talking about WvW related issue.

And I would agree with you that they do not need to answer at all, only and only if there is a good track record of the devs taking in feedback without interaction. But as of today, from what I can see, that is simply not the case. With no interaction and many issues ignored, I cannot say with good faith that they are able to address feedback without answering anything.

So for the devs to say they read feedback but their actions more often than not showing otherwise... I raise my initial question once again 'Can Anet please come forward and tell us how exactly are they expecting members of the community to know that their feedback is actually taken? '

[Luthan.5236]

I assume - from their actions - that the feedback is read. Of course there is no proof. (Would be hard to prove I think. Even if they quoted something while posting directly in the forums someone might contest it saying they just randomly quoted without having read the post or they let an AI do the stuff.)

In PvE we got a lot of stuff that was requested ...  though ages later. WvW it seems they did stuff people wanted? (I mean: When me and some others complain ... wanting the old server system back ... there are other people saying that players requested stuff like in the world restructuring.)

Main issue seems the delay or it taking looooooong. The moment they implement something it is somethign players wantED (but then they already want something else and or/the current change does not fit into the game very well).

[Cameirus.8407]

Anet has always been awful at community engagement, but more than that, they never ever listen to feedback at all.

They have their ideas, which are often extremely bad for the game, and the community tells them...and they ignore the community and just go ahead anyway.

Forget the idea of any consultation or engagement. Its at best a shame. Anet could not care less what player think.

[Sheff.4851]

8 hours ago, RlyOsim.2497 said:

(imo) The game has taken a nose dive in terms of content and quality over the last 2-3 years. Even take a look at tpot and his band of content creators, they regularly highlight how poor a lot of the recent stuff has been, and their incomes are dependent upon the health of the game. If people are enjoying the game, more power to them, but that people are cynical after the last few years is to be expected, to me at least.

But in relation to OP, they raise a very good point. Like where is this feedback coming from? It does not appear to be from the wider community and stuff like WR, the current boon meta and to some extent the scoring changes really underline this point. Like the feedback they appear to be getting is from 'hardcore' zerg players, why is this the case? How can one subsection of the playerbase dictate the overall direction of the gamemode and then, how can Anet expect changes based on that feedback to be widely well received/improve the health of the gamemode?

But that is just guess work, noone seems to know where the feedback is coming from but it would be nice to have some insights into why these (and future) changes are chosen beyond 'we hope people will enjoy it'.

It's coming from venues that aren't the forums, because the forums aren't the only meaningful WvW community, and in terms of raw participation, they're far from being the largest at this point. ArenaNet gathers feedback from the official forums, yes, but also from the Guild Wars 2 subreddit, where several devs are regular posters, the Guild Wars 2 Discord, where Roy is a regular poster, the NA and EU Alliances Discord servers, where Roy and Cecil are regular posters, and a number of smaller, more specialized Discords like the WvW Initiative server, the OCX community server, and then also just random Twitch streams and other community efforts. I remember a year or two ago, I made a balance patch preview video about some WvW changes, and Grouch himself popped into my Twitch chat to talk about it. I had about five viewers at the time. I was surprised that, one, he found the video on YouTube at all, and two, that he bothered to come check my Twitch to talk about it. But the other thing to keep in mind, is that you don't have to be an active participant to be a good listener, and in many cases, active participation from ArenaNet can derail meaningful and valuable conversations. So I don't think it's fair to assume that they aren't reading just because they aren't posting.

[Riba.3271]

You can uprage all you want but all you will get out of it is "What is next for WvW" and promise that "they will communicate better" dev post. Has happened several times before, but nothing changed. It has gone downhill ever since long time ago when they gave developers anonymous forum accounts. What ended up happening is that none of there were posting anymore.

In the end probably their contracts now has a clause that means they are responsible for any financial loss that their words cause, and at least gives grounds for termination. For lawyers it is easy to spin words so that agreeing with any constructive critisism is same as causing financial loss.

Edited July 23 by Riba.3271

[RlyOsim.2497]

45 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

It's coming from venues that aren't the forums, because the forums aren't the only meaningful WvW community, and in terms of raw participation, they're far from being the largest at this point. ArenaNet gathers feedback from the official forums, yes, but also from the Guild Wars 2 subreddit, where several devs are regular posters, the Guild Wars 2 Discord, where Roy is a regular poster, the NA and EU Alliances Discord servers, where Roy and Cecil are regular posters, and a number of smaller, more specialized Discords like the WvW Initiative server, the OCX community server, and then also just random Twitch streams and other community efforts. I remember a year or two ago, I made a balance patch preview video about some WvW changes, and Grouch himself popped into my Twitch chat to talk about it. I had about five viewers at the time. I was surprised that, one, he found the video on YouTube at all, and two, that he bothered to come check my Twitch to talk about it. But the other thing to keep in mind, is that you don't have to be an active participant to be a good listener, and in many cases, active participation from ArenaNet can derail meaningful and valuable conversations. So I don't think it's fair to assume that they aren't reading just because they aren't posting.

You're responding as if you know these things to be facts, I'm not sure they are but I hear your larger point. Regardless, and after you had to wade through the comments from your interview, these changes haven't been received very well by a sizable portion of the wvw playerbase so perhaps highlighting feedback in general as topic for Anet is no harm as whatever they are basing their current direction on seems, at least in part, flawed.

[Sheff.4851]

15 minutes ago, RlyOsim.2497 said:

You're responding as if you know these things to be facts, I'm not sure they are but I hear your larger point. Regardless, and after you had to wade through the comments from your interview, these changes haven't been received very well by a sizable portion of the wvw playerbase so perhaps highlighting feedback in general as topic for Anet is no harm as whatever they are basing their current direction on seems, at least in part, flawed.

Well, there's two threads of evidence that contribute to them being fact rather than opinion. First, YouTube Studio tells you what proportion of a video's traffic comes from different sources. Views that come from the forums accounted for about 6% of total views, about the same as views that came from Discord, while views that came from Reddit accounted for around 10%. Additionally, these forums show you the number of views that a post has, as does Reddit. Currently, this post has 5600 views. The post that I did on Reddit to discuss this video has 46000 (obviously, with the caveat that this is in the World vs. World subforum, and the Guild Wars 2 subreddit is for the entire game -- but deciding to view a post is a choice that a user makes, so it's worth considering). I'd also say that, among people who choose to leave feedback, the feedback has been negative, but you can't infer overall sentiment from a small minority of people choosing to leave feedback. Of the 2000 people that have watched the video on YouTube, only a small handful (86) chose to leave either a thumbs up or thumbs down. Of the 5600 views that this post has, only 20 or so users bothered to respond. Those users have been mostly (but not entirely) negative, but what about the people who viewed this post and didn't reply? Maybe they like it, maybe they don't, who can say.

The other interesting thing about Studio telling you what your sources of traffic are is that you can compare what Studio says about external views to what that external source says about overall engagement. For example, this post has 5600 views, and 200 total comments, but there's only 125 views that have come from the forums. So either people are seeing the video and searching it on YouTube instead of watching the embed, or, people are commenting without having watched the video. I wouldn't be surprised by either of those, personally, but it's just interesting to note.

Second, as far as developer participation goes, I mean...I see them post. I don't know what you want me to say. Roy talks to people once a week or so in the Guild Wars 2 Discord. Cecil talks to people about once a week in Alliances. Awesumeness is a regular commenter in the Guild Wars 2 subreddit. There is developer participation across a wide spectrum of Guild Wars 2 communities, the forums aren't the only place that matters. You can state that factually because you can just go and look at it.

Edit: Did my numbers wrong. For transparency, here's the data from Studio.

Views: 1947 as of this post.
External View % (views that came from places other than YouTube): 25.9%
% External From Reddit: 39.7%
% External From Forums: 24.1%
% External From Discord: 17.8%
Likes: 72 (83.7% liked)
Comments: 56

Edited July 23 by Sheff.4851
Incorrect numbers.

[Gauis.2768]

41 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

It's coming from venues that aren't the forums, because the forums aren't the only meaningful WvW community, and in terms of raw participation, they're far from being the largest at this point. ArenaNet gathers feedback from the official forums, yes, but also from the Guild Wars 2 subreddit, where several devs are regular posters, the Guild Wars 2 Discord, where Roy is a regular poster, the NA and EU Alliances Discord servers, where Roy and Cecil are regular posters, and a number of smaller, more specialized Discords like the WvW Initiative server, the OCX community server, and then also just random Twitch streams and other community efforts. I remember a year or two ago, I made a balance patch preview video about some WvW changes, and Grouch himself popped into my Twitch chat to talk about it. I had about five viewers at the time. I was surprised that, one, he found the video on YouTube at all, and two, that he bothered to come check my Twitch to talk about it. But the other thing to keep in mind, is that you don't have to be an active participant to be a good listener, and in many cases, active participation from ArenaNet can derail meaningful and valuable conversations. So I don't think it's fair to assume that they aren't reading just because they aren't posting.

Before I go any further, this is NOT targeted to any individual ArenaNet staff. I am simply sharing what I can find with whatever available resource that is around.

 

So, I went to look through reddit, filtered by Developer flair and tried to filer to WvWrelated comments for the past year and this is what I see - https://imgur.com/a/mut75Av

If you know how to better filter it, please share because I don't see it. I truly don't see the engagement here too. From my search results there was comments on 5 different posts related to WvW. None of the is related to the state of the game, 1 is to address the wrong team issue during WvW beta and the remaining is all Fluff. Even if you were to go to Roy's reddit account, for the past year there are no comments addressing anything of the state of the game for WvW. He definitely engaged the gw2 community I can give you that, but how much of it is related to WvW issues and addressing any feedback. You can go and take a look at it yourself. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post his reddit profile here, so I will not.

 

NA alliance Discord server - https://imgur.com/a/9aMFxAB

I think its discord, but I could only see results dating back to May of this year. So using the 2 months worth of data point. I can indeed see that he was engaging the community on certain WvW topic. He however, made it clear at one point of time he was there to discussed on a specific topic. Nothing wrong with that. He even stepped back to allow the conversation to continue it's course. Maybe it is as you said, '... in many cases, active participation from ArenaNet can derail meaningful and valuable conversations'. But what Roy did here certainly did not cause it to derail. At the same time, I think this proves my point that engaging with the community is something that is beneficial. Although he was focused on only 1 topic... Those discord members know Roy actually read some stuff they wrote. How often can you say the same for the members in this forum?

 

As for your experience of Grouch popping into your stream chat, I am going to ignore this. Firstly, as you said, it was 5 users at that point of time when you were streaming. We don't know  how many of the viewers are actually invested in said WvW topic. So the reach of this discussion is very limited. Secondly, not trying to throw you down but... While you certainly have a small following and a larger reach than most, you are by no means a representation of the larger community. Your opinion is just as valuable as every other member. Lastly and I think this is the most important of all. I personally feel all these discussion should be readily available and easily accessible to anyone who is interested in this topic. For example, 6 months down the line if someone were to search on 'anet engagement rate' they will come across public forums such as reddit and this very forum. Discord? I'm not so sure. Likewise for your stream chat. I hope you see where I am coming from. No hate.

 

Look, I'm not discrediting whatever Anet is trying to do to reach out in other platforms. However, I dare say that this forum have more old topics covered across the years as compared to whatever platform out there. Some issues have been discussed for literal years on this forum and there seems to be no signs of progression. Yes, it isn't fair to assume that they aren't reading just because they aren't posting. But the same sentence can be flipped and it can also be said it isn't fair to assume that they are reading but aren't posting. Currently I feel that I am writing on a wall and everyone but the intended audience have read it.

 

 

[Sheff.4851]

7 minutes ago, Gauis.2768 said:

Before I go any further, this is NOT targeted to any individual ArenaNet staff. I am simply sharing what I can find with whatever available resource that is around.

 

So, I went to look through reddit, filtered by Developer flair and tried to filer to WvWrelated comments for the past year and this is what I see - https://imgur.com/a/mut75Av

If you know how to better filter it, please share because I don't see it. I truly don't see the engagement here too. From my search results there was comments on 5 different posts related to WvW. None of the is related to the state of the game, 1 is to address the wrong team issue during WvW beta and the remaining is all Fluff. Even if you were to go to Roy's reddit account, for the past year there are no comments addressing anything of the state of the game for WvW. He definitely engaged the gw2 community I can give you that, but how much of it is related to WvW issues and addressing any feedback. You can go and take a look at it yourself. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post his reddit profile here, so I will not.

 

NA alliance Discord server - https://imgur.com/a/9aMFxAB

I think its discord, but I could only see results dating back to May of this year. So using the 2 months worth of data point. I can indeed see that he was engaging the community on certain WvW topic. He however, made it clear at one point of time he was there to discussed on a specific topic. Nothing wrong with that. He even stepped back to allow the conversation to continue it's course. Maybe it is as you said, '... in many cases, active participation from ArenaNet can derail meaningful and valuable conversations'. But what Roy did here certainly did not cause it to derail. At the same time, I think this proves my point that engaging with the community is something that is beneficial. Although he was focused on only 1 topic... Those discord members know Roy actually read some stuff they wrote. How often can you say the same for the members in this forum?

 

As for your experience of Grouch popping into your stream chat, I am going to ignore this. Firstly, as you said, it was 5 users at that point of time when you were streaming. We don't know  how many of the viewers are actually invested in said WvW topic. So the reach of this discussion is very limited. Secondly, not trying to throw you down but... While you certainly have a small following and a larger reach than most, you are by no means a representation of the larger community. Your opinion is just as valuable as every other member. Lastly and I think this is the most important of all. I personally feel all these discussion should be readily available and easily accessible to anyone who is interested in this topic. For example, 6 months down the line if someone were to search on 'anet engagement rate' they will come across public forums such as reddit and this very forum. Discord? I'm not so sure. Likewise for your stream chat. I hope you see where I am coming from. No hate.

 

Look, I'm not discrediting whatever Anet is trying to do to reach out in other platforms. However, I dare say that this forum have more old topics covered across the years as compared to whatever platform out there. Some issues have been discussed for literal years on this forum and there seems to be no signs of progression. Yes, it isn't fair to assume that they aren't reading just because they aren't posting. But the same sentence can be flipped and it can also be said it isn't fair to assume that they are reading but aren't posting. Currently I feel that I am writing on a wall and everyone but the intended audience have read it.

 

 

That's a well-reasoned criticism. A few notes.

1.) ArenaNet devs don't always post in the Discord using their official flair. That's their choice. So official flair filtering will miss some participation.

2.) He didn't derail the discussion because I specifically gave him a warning for talking kitten about Veridian. We take the rules very seriously on that Discord. In other communities, that isn't the case, and developer participation is more prone to derailment (having ArenaNet participation in that Discord at all was a big thing for us as admins, it is explicitly not an official GW2 Discord, and never will be). You'd also want to search for Cecil's posts, his Discord username is umm.senna -- he participates even more than Roy does.

3.) I think talking about ArenaNet's engagement rate is complicated. The forums are the only official venue, so naturally, this is where ArenaNet directs their feedback. There's a reason that they tend to consolidate feedback here, because you're absolutely right, doing a Q&A on Twitch doesn't leave a permanent record of the conversation, and it's lost to the aether. But at the same time, the point of this discussion comes more or less into focus. The specific thread topic here is how often ArenaNet engages with the official forums, and I think there's legitimate complaints to be made there. But when it drifts into "ArenaNet doesn't engage with the community at large", I think that there's considerable evidence that is not the case. I, personally, don't really want to derail this topic too much, but I think it's valid and positive for the community to have ArenaNet participate in a number of different venues, and so I'd specifically challenge this point that you make:

> How often can you say the same for the members in this forum?

With my argument being, nobody is locked in here. You can participate in multiple places at once. There's other communities that you can join about Guild Wars 2, communities that are focused on different elements of the game. I spent some time lurking in the forums before beginning to post here myself, because I like to observe community norms, and the forums definitely have a bias, the same as any other community. But exposing yourself to different community biases, and having conversations with people from different communities, is how we expand and develop what we know about the game, how we play it, and how we interact with other people who play it as well.

[RlyOsim.2497]

Fair points.

[Gauis.2768]

3 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

That's a well-reasoned criticism. A few notes.

1.) ArenaNet devs don't always post in the Discord using their official flair. That's their choice. So official flair filtering will miss some participation.

2.) He didn't derail the discussion because I specifically gave him a warning for talking kitten about Veridian. We take the rules very seriously on that Discord. In other communities, that isn't the case, and developer participation is more prone to derailment (having ArenaNet participation in that Discord at all was a big thing for us as admins, it is explicitly not an official GW2 Discord, and never will be). You'd also want to search for Cecil's posts, his Discord username is umm.senna -- he participates even more than Roy does.

3.) I think talking about ArenaNet's engagement rate is complicated. The forums are the only official venue, so naturally, this is where ArenaNet directs their feedback. There's a reason that they tend to consolidate feedback here, because you're absolutely right, doing a Q&A on Twitch doesn't leave a permanent record of the conversation, and it's lost to the aether. But at the same time, the point of this discussion comes more or less into focus. The specific thread topic here is how often ArenaNet engages with the official forums, and I think there's legitimate complaints to be made there. But when it drifts into "ArenaNet doesn't engage with the community at large", I think that there's considerable evidence that is not the case. I, personally, don't really want to derail this topic too much, but I think it's valid and positive for the community to have ArenaNet participate in a number of different venues, and so I'd specifically challenge this point that you make:

> How often can you say the same for the members in this forum?

With my argument being, nobody is locked in here. You can participate in multiple places at once. There's other communities that you can join about Guild Wars 2, communities that are focused on different elements of the game. I spent some time lurking in the forums before beginning to post here myself, because I like to observe community norms, and the forums definitely have a bias, the same as any other community. But exposing yourself to different community biases, and having conversations with people from different communities, is how we expand and develop what we know about the game, how we play it, and how we interact with other people who play it as well.

1) Fair enough, but for argument sake neither of us can accurately produce data on this then.

2) Thank you for the context regarding point 2. I have to admit I did not follow the entire conversation throughout and formed an opinion early. I guess having a good enforcement to moderate how conversation end up is a good thing about that Discord at least. At the same time, I will be looking out for Cecil's posts too.

3) Personally, I lurk reddit even more than I lurk on this forum. The complains on reddit with regards to WvW is significantly lesser because ultimately, it isn't focused on WvW but the whole of GW2. The amount WvW related posts and also complains are also significantly lesser. Reddit users are often known for reposting and I can only say from experience but not bring any receipts, the ground sentiments there is also pretty similar to what we have here. 'Anet don't listen to feedback'. I am not opposed to participating multiple places at once. But in my experience on reddit and this forum. The sentiments on this topic is largely the same.

As for Discord, the nature of Discord is ultimately an instant messaging tool. An argument can be made that it provokes more conversation-like-discussion. But at the same time, because it is an messaging tool. The amount of messages that gets posted in a channel within a day can vary from tens to thousands. How do you expect people to keep up with that amount of messages? Of course, I'm not saying that happens everyday and the numbers can be much lower. However, amongst these messages, how many are related and not just filler comments? And I would argue that it is significantly easier to come back to a forum post and continue from where I last read. I know Discord have 'threads' or what not, that can be utilized to contain specific topics of discussion, but I don't think I am wrong to say that these conversation are less likely to be found as compared to forums from a Google search away. I am open to using Discord as a form of communication, but I don't see it behaving the same way as how a forum is like.

 

[Roy Marks.7689]

Hey there!

I just wanted to jump in on this thread and let folks know that I do actively read this sub-forum to gather feedback and read the discussions going on about WvW. I understand that not seeing direct comments from me can raise the question of how often I'm coming here, but I am actively reading through most threads and comments, and often times find it easier to read through everything and compile feedback from folks without commenting directly. As I've done previously - and plan to continue to do - if I feel as though I want clarification on something or want to expand a specific discussion point I will comment on it.

Thank you for the discussions and feedbacks ❤️ 

 

Cheers,

Roy

Edited July 23 by Roy Marks.7689