Forum Signatures [merged]

[rapthorne.7345]

They just need to tell us. The forums are a communication and discussion tool, not some extension to the achievements system in the game. To lock out basic forum features behind a song and dance is absolutely absurd to me, as someone who has made use of forums for communication within gaming communities for over a decade.

[phokus.8934]

Is this real life? They really think that posting on the forums and having a surprise rank up that then unlocks signatures is a good idea?

Who is making these decisions? Very odd...

[Hana.8143]

Signatures are truly the most needed feature on the forum indeed."Lvl 80 : Thief X I Kill You X / Scourge X Why U Melting Bro X / Spellbreaker Xx Turtle Warrior E P Xx"Such usefull informations ! :P

[Cyprien.4208]

It's meant to surprise and delight us however we already know what it is.

I can tell you the requirement of getting the signature and personal icons it's becoming a member of the anet staff and that's not really a surprise. I honestly don't care about signatures and etc it's just extra fluff.

[Danikat.8537]

I think 'promoted' is a separate reaction, possibly one only available to Anet staff. The ESO forum uses the same software and that has a reaction called 'Developer' which can be used by their staff to say they like/support a post. It almost never is used, but they have the option. The way the promote reaction has been used on Gaile's posts seems similar.

I seem to remember reading a post from Gaile somewhere which said you need to reach veteran rank to get a signature. Since the member rank was time-gated (you had to wait 3 days after your first post) I'm guessing the same is true for veteran, but obviously with a longer wait time. There might be a post count/point requirement too. Since Anet don't seem to want to tell us I think all we can do is wait and see when it unlocks - once a few people have got it we should be able to work out what the requirements are.

Personally I don't think it's worth worrying about. I did use my signature on the old forum, and I'd sometimes read other people's, but it's not like it's a problem to not have one, it was extremely rare that it had useful information, and if something you'd normally put in a signature is relevant to the topic you can always include it in your post.

@Menadena.7482 said:As others have noted they seem to view this forum as a game and are putting hidden achievements in. I do not go to a forum for the same reasons as I go to a game, nor do I expect it to act like one.

Then we wonder why other forums are so popular. Why is it gaming companies are always SO bad at running a tool that has existed in one form or another since the net was even a thing?

It's called 'gameification' and it's apparently the big thing with social media recently. Basically using 'achievements' and other video game style rewards/incentives to encourage participation. It seems a bit silly to me, and I'm inclined to think it's more likely to work on non-gamers who aren't familiar with a) spotting and b) working around those systems.

[Endless Soul.5178]

Well, at least it's not like the forum of another game I used to play where you had to have participated in 15 matches within a few days time to even be able to post on the forums.

[Rauderi.8706]

I don't know what the requirements are, but...I am now a 3-star forumer~

[Gaile Gray.6029]

Bingo, Rauderi. Welcome to Veterancy. As the saying goes, "Rank has its privileges." =)

[Manasa Devi.7958]

@Hana.8143 said:Signatures are truly the most needed feature on the forum indeed."Lvl 80 : Thief X I Kill You X / Scourge X Why U Melting Bro X / Spellbreaker Xx Turtle Warrior E P Xx"Such usefull informations ! :P

I can't wait until the "Hide signatures always" option that I enabled on day one will actually start suppressing signatures. It will be so delightful!

[DakotaCoty.5721]

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:Bingo, Rauderi. Welcome to Veterancy. As the saying goes, "Rank has its privileges." =)

I have more badges, and I don't have "veteran" status.

[Menadena.7482]

@Hana.8143 said:Signatures are truly the most needed feature on the forum indeed."Lvl 80 : Thief X I Kill You X / Scourge X Why U Melting Bro X / Spellbreaker Xx Turtle Warrior E P Xx"Such usefull informations ! :P

Maybe not always useful information but a standard function on forums. Even if for the fact it is one of the few ways to add some personality to your voice on here (I do not count avatars since they are not customizable and only a few are really popular).

[Lonecap.4105]

I actually think you're all being ridiculous. Signatures are, on other forums, quite worthless. They clog things up, they're messy, repetitive. People write annoying things in them. So why are you acting like it's a big deal you don't have one? They're an unnecessary perk. They're only trying to incentivise ongoing forum usage. Maybe it wasn't for the best, but I truly believe it came from a good place. I'm honestly shocked at how up-in-arms most people ITT are. Really absurd.

[Menadena.7482]

@Endless Soul.5178 said:Well, at least it's not like the forum of another game I used to play where you had to have participated in 15 matches within a few days time to even be able to post on the forums.

Ugh. :(

Another decided to specifically tie forum offenses (monitored by a third party with opaque and often random rules) to account bans inworld. Brilliant move as myself and other top posters decided we would rather use different forums than risk our game accounts because someone had a bad day before reading our posts on something elsewhere. It would have been like playing Russian Roulette to stay.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

Dakota -- I believe you do!

[DakotaCoty.5721]

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:Dakota -- I believe you do!

It came just as I posted this! The criteria is baffling, but I think I worked it out, have a good day Gaile.

[Lonami.2987]

Edit: Seems I just got a rank up as well. Ten bucks the rank was bugged or disabled, or that it gets manually enabled. Still a mystery.

Still, I would prefer if everyone had signatures. I don't think it's fair to be forced to farm upvotes and spam posts just to unlock this. Someone like a fanfic writer that doesn't post too much will never get visibility for his work.

@Static.9841 said:

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:The Rank and Badge system was developed to -- to borrow a phrase from our game developers -- surprise and delight. I don't think there's anything so critical about this particular element of the forums that we need to outline the this's and that's of it. I am sure that when someone achieves that rank, they'll let everyone know. :)

Given that any forum you go to outside of this one, including the old GW2 forums has most of this straight away, how do you perceive removing standard features and forcing them into random unlocks as "suprise and delight"? They aren't new special features, you've just removed ones we previously had and have forced them into a mystery unlock feature, some of which make no sense at all.

I don't even understand how you can consider this to be 'fun', it's just gating standard features for very little rhyme or reason -

we have collection items in game, do we really need to 'grind' on a forum just to get basic features we used to have access to?

What delight is there that we can eventually do what we used to be able to do on the old version of the forum? All you've done is over-complicated things and to consider it fun is purely asinine.

I couldn't agree more. This just adds to the pile of mistakes that have been the new forums so far (at release you couldn't edit posts after 15min, thumbs down were a thing until some ArenaNet employee got thumbed down to hell, etc).

Stop trying to gamify a tool that shouldn't be gamified to begin with. The official forums are unpopular enough already. Give us a forum that works with the basic functions that every forum has since 2005, and stop wasting your time with something no one asked for.

@Endless Soul.5178 said:Well, at least it's not like the forum of another game I used to play where you had to have participated in 15 matches within a few days time to even be able to post on the forums.

Don't give them ideas.

[Palador.2170]

Suddenly, signatures.

I wonder if something was "stuck", and in the process of checking into things, it was somehow fixed allowing people to advance.

[Malediktus.9250]

I think they unlock with reaching 3 star rank on the forums. Which seems to be entirely time gated and has nothing to do with badges.

[Menadena.7482]

@Malediktus.9250 said:I think they unlock with reaching 3 star rank on the forums. Which seems to be entirely time gated and has nothing to do with badges.

What I was thinking since about only anet people had them until today. That is too much of a coincidence.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

You're sort of right, Palador, but folks "ranking up" -- such as yourself, happened due to anniversary times within the system, which is (and was) configured properly in all languages.

As far as signatures, though, I've been tweaking and prodding today, using my friend Google Translate (I lie, actually Google Translate and I are only distant acquaintances ;) ) in order to get things aligned for all members in every forum. Things were not set-up properly on the back end (hand on heart, 'twasn't me!) and as I mentioned yesterday I feel it's not appropriate (fair, kind) for there to be discrepancies between our language communities. So now everything is set up properly and we should see many more signatures across all the forums now.

Thanks to everyone who was patient while I looked into the situation. I think we're good to go now!

[TheOrlyFactor.8341]

@Rouven.7409 said:Vwls nw fr sl n th frm gm str. Tn ss pr vwl, cn b sd vr mltpl psts.

:p

Fixed that for you.

Er, I mean, "Fxd tht fr y"

:P

[UnbentMars.9126]

So far (at least in this thread) the only common theme is 3 stars/Veterancy for the signatures some people have been posting. Checking their account stats, they vary widely in number of thumbs up and helpfuls, though so far the only person I've seen with anything under the "Promoted" field is @Gaile Gray.6029, though her signature is almost assuredly from being an ANET employee.

Not that it couldn't be simply earned by posts (as everyone loves Gaile and she's got a ton of points), it just goes to show the lack of understanding on our part what it takes to hit the next tier of membership in the forums.

Most likely options so far:Time spent with an account linked to these specific forumsThresholds for Helpfuls and/or Thumbs UpThresholds for # of badges earned

[Menadena.7482]

Thanks for letting us use sigs Gaile!

[UnbentMars.9126]

@UnbentMars.9126 said:So far (at least in this thread) the only common theme is 3 stars/Veterancy for the signatures some people have been posting. Checking their account stats, they vary widely in number of thumbs up and helpfuls, though so far the only person I've seen with anything under the "Promoted" field is @"Gaile Gray.6029", though her signature is almost assuredly from being an ANET employee.

Not that it couldn't be simply earned by posts (as everyone loves Gaile and she's got a ton of points), it just goes to show the lack of understanding on our part what it takes to hit the next tier of membership in the forums.

Most likely options so far:Time spent with an account linked to these specific forumsThresholds for Helpfuls and/or Thumbs UpThresholds for # of badges earned

Man, people have been commenting fast on this...Never mind about my guesses, Gaile let us know how that works while I was typing mine lol. Thanks Gaile! Does anyone know if there's a way to see a "Member since" field? I can't find one

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

Got my signature this morning. Received an announcement that I had reached Veteran rank. Checked and signature was unlocked.

Maybe time? I haven’t gotten any new badges since yesterday.

Edit: it appears Gaile has tweaked the system

@Gaile Gray.6029As far as signatures, though, I've been tweaking and prodding today, using my friend Google Translate (I lie, actually Google Translate and I are only distant acquaintances ;) ) in order to get things aligned for all members in every forum. Things were not set-up properly on the back end (hand on heart, 'twasn't me!) and as I mentioned yesterday I feel it's not appropriate (fair, kind) for there to be discrepancies between our language communities. So now everything is set up properly and we should see many more signatures across all the forums no