Roland Daemon

For the past week, I had been struggling to think of something to write. With a lack of new information about Guild Wars 2, I haven't had anything to actually write about. I wracked my brain over and over trying to find something I could talk about.

Could I talk about the classes? Not really seeing as how there are blogs and reviews of people who've actually played the game and have done great reporting on it already.

Races? Already did a blog on that a couple weeks ago as well as the multitude of race talk throughout the GW2 community with in depth talk of each individual race, even blogs out there talking about the gender roles and sex of the Slyvari. (which are great reads!)

It wasn't till roughly two hours ago, I was talking with a co-worker and it dawned on me what I could write about.

This is a blog for everyone. The developers at Arenanet (or any developer that read's this) and the community at large. Just some general tips that can benefit everyone if they were just followed. If you wish to skip some semi-irrelevant text, go ahead and skip down to the next bolded text line. I'll continue where i'm going with it for Guild Wars 2.


I've been an avid gamer my whole life. In the past 13 years (since starcraft first came out) I've been online and playing games. I've seen how games have changed with half-life, consoles and MMO's. There has been great progression with everything that has been leading up to our current generation of gaming but there has one thing that has been worrying me with game developers in recent years.

For me, the issue's started after the Infinity Ward fiasco two years ago. I won't go in depth but pretty much it started the trend that I've been seeing for A LOT of game dev's. (MMO's and otherwise). A Month before the actual release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, they announced that they would stop giving dedicated servers and it would be on a matchmaking system with no server browser. There would be no modtools and ways to administrate servers.

This was the start of a decline in developers forgetting who helped them get so popular in the first place. We did. In that one decision, they destroyed an avid modding community. They destroyed many FPS communities from expanding into the game with their own servers and they just ignored all the plea's and a petition signed by nearly a quarter of a million people asking them not to do the matchmaking system.

It was just a bunch of really bad press and set precedents that would slowly start to destroy PC Gaming. Since then, I haven't seen many games (if at all) be released that let the community mod any game they bought and owned. There are still games out there (Team fortress 2) that still have a good mod community mainly because valve is going out of their way to support it but that's not enough.



What does Guild Wars 2 and Arenanet have anything to do with that?

Honestly, Arenanet has been doing a fantastic job aside from one issue I have. They are following their community closely, listening to suggestions and openly ask people who have played GW2 for feedback on nearly everything.

They're doing exactly what a gaming company should do and always work toward making their player base happy as possible. They won't be able to please everyone, but the fact is they are trying their hardest to get the biggest percentage possible as happy as can be. This is good, this is very good. I want this game to succeed so much that other game developers look at them and go 'Why did they succeed?!' and find out why.

Far too long now have many companies ignored their communities and player base in exchange for one thing -> profits. I understand that making games is quickly becoming big business and I'm fine with companies trying to make more money but PLEASE don't piss us off trying to do so. There are so many ways to prevent this and seeing developers ignore it is like being stabbed in the heart.


Just a few tips I want to give to Arenanet before I grab hold of the player base and give us our what-for as well.

1. Keep talking to us. We like knowing what's going on and having open contact with you guys has been amazing with twitter and, to some extent, facebook. Seeing you guys post on Guru as well has helped clear up some misunderstandings there were made and have helped keep everyone closer together. Having this relationship mean's it'll be easier to work with us and won't hurt as bad when you inevitably have to do something that may or may not hurt us.

I'm not saying you will, but there decisions that have to be made sometimes that does alienate a playerbase but sometimes it's for the greater good.

1a. Have a good support structure. This mean's ease of GM and customer support via in-game options and
external websites such an official forum (<- THIS IS MY BIGGEST GRIPE RIGHT NOW. Lack of official forums ) This will ensure that people keep coming back when everyone is friendly and helpful... even when we're not the nicest people to you.


2. Don't let people buy 'Power'. This is a trend that many, many games have fallen into and i've seen some really good MMO's and game's killed by it. Buy letting people buy items that they can't earn game that are as strong (and sometimes, unfortunately, stronger) it promotes elitism that is something that really needs to be stopped. I know you guys at Arenanet know what you're with your cash shop because the cash shop for Guild Wars is done exactly how it should be. Items/purchases for convenience and cosmetic items are honestly the best way to go with any micro-transactions.

3. Be patient with us. We're gamers and with anonymity on the internet, it mean's that we can be total assholes when we're really nice people. We get really passionate about the games we play and take part of and sometimes changes feel like you're alienating the person behind the change, not the change in general. We will make assumptions, fly off the handle, etc. etc. and all I can really ask is to be patient with us.

I trust that you will be able to make hard decisions (especially with mechanics and game-play choices within the game) especially when there are people against a decision. Just be patient with us.



And the other side of coin...

Players. I love that all of you out there love your games and the developers of the games. Some of us are really passionate about what we play and will go to great lengths to get as many people to believe our opinion. This is not always the best, but it's not bad either as sometimes we understand things greater than others... but not always.

I have a few tips for the players at large as well, especially when it pertains to the bigger picture.

1. Take a STEP BACK. LOOK at things from the bigger picture. Things change in games (especially MMO's) all the time. This happens because of how games are designed currently with patching and on-going balance. Balance is a very hard thing to do and there is only one game in the world that is considered perfectly balanced. (starcraft, anyone?) Every game developer balancing a game because of how hard it actually is. Things will change, what was powerful one day may change the next to be less than useful. While that is an extreme, it can and has happened. The only tip I can give to the player in you is to take a step back and actually look at things from a bigger perspective.

Sometimes, that's all it takes to understand why a change was made.

2. BE PATIENT WITH DEV'S . Yeah, we want things now. This society that has been created with the internet mean's instant gratification and rewards. This is a bad thing. The idea of patience is something that has long been lost in the current generations and it is something that truly upsets me in real life. Changes in any game take time and unless it actually breaks the game to be unplayable, it shouldn't be treated as such. If a class does 100 more damage than another, you shouldn't moan to every forum you can find so everyone knows that you hate that a class does more damage than you.

This is a bad idea, the WORST idea and you shouldn't do it! It's annoying and it really doesn't help anything at all.

I can think of a million more things to tell players what they shouldn't do, but at this point I feel like i'm just preaching to an empty room. The fact of the matter is that there are some things that as players, we should and shouldn't accept.

And for the game developers that may read this. There are things that should never be left out of your games because its what makes us play the games you created for years to come.

Don't turn something you made into crap, it makes it not fun for everyone.

~Roland Daemon of the Free Frag Network
You can follow me on twitter here! -> Maxwell Brook (@RolandDaemon) on Twitter