Martin Kerstein - in an effort to give the community an idea of the routes of communication at our disposal - has not only confirmed the plans for ArenaNet-hosted and -moderated forums, but has also explained the company's efforts to integrate with every sort of player-hub available, from Facebook to machinima to guild sites.
 
He also lays out their vision for the kind of all-inclusive community they want to build for Guild Wars 2, and while that sure may seem unrealistic given what we know about the internet, the following post from GW2 Guru might just give you hope.
 
Martin Kerstein said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kwintpod Easier said than done

No, it is actually easy. There is no rule that you have to tolerate obnoxious behaviour. If people want to be "cool kids on the internet", they can do so. But not on our forums.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Juanele Good luck Martin, I think your moderating team will need it.

They will need energy drinks and a clear set of rules which we will provide.

Just to make this point clear: Many of us have been around gaming communities for a long time, as players as well as professionals. We are not naive. There was a lot of research and thought behind what we want to achieve.

And i am sure a lot of people might have to adjust their online behaviour, which is probably a good thing.

This is awesome!  Great news.

I hope it's less of a cesspit than Guru, I doubt it as official forums are usually terrible, but it looks as if they're trying to nurture a decent atmosphere.

This is good news. GW2 guru is a black hole and they should nuke that shit and get as far away as possible.

I can only see official forums being worse than the fansite ones, but at least they should offer more direct feedback to the developers and more integration with the game itself, which might be useful.

Now we just have to wait for the impending release date announcement.

The only thing I went to the forums for in the first game was to get price checks on items. I might spend some more time on these new ones, but I doubt it.

Meh, I only ever went to Guru for their excellent buying and selling forums. Not really interested in the community beyond the friends and Giantbombers I'll be playing with.

gwonline.net was the website I visited most often and the community there I found was better than Guru.

GW2Guru hasn't exactly set the bar very high for forums so these will have a chance to be better. One can only hope.

GW2Guru ain't as bad as you guys make it out to be. Compared to the Blizzard and Bioware forums, it's tolerable. At its heyday, guildwarsguru is the place to be.

@Henny: There's a lot of stupidity, especially in the recent months as the hype for the game has really taken off. Perhaps not as much as big official forums, but a lot of the discussions over there are ridiculous, particularly the ones about the release date, the game being for "casual's" and every argument boiling down to "I don't want this in the game, it ruins immersion!".

The mods also control the content like a nazi state, deleting posts or banning people who go even remotely off-topic, but allowing huge flame wars and discussions about the release date that just go around and around in circles (the current thread is on it's 7th incarnation and spans over 350 pages).

I know a few of the moderators over at Guru, and sometimes it seems all they do is delete threads and ban trolls, I don't know why they stick around. For one, I'm glad the pressure will be taken off them and Guru can return to like it was a couple of years ago.

The other part of me can't help but think that the community managers over at ArenaNet and their team will have most of their time taken up doing the exact same thing as the guys at Guru. I think they know what to expect, but it's hard to tell at this point.

For me, I'll probably stick to the GWOnline and Massively forums, those'll probably still be the most tolerable.

What was the net effect of SWTOR making you accountable in game for actions on the official forum? I seem to recall being banned on the forums prevented you from playing the game? Might have made that up but it's definitely a way to keep trolls and such away from the official forum if they make it clear up front that harassing on the forums will get you a suspension from the game also.

Cause if you harass people in game in MMOs you can get suspended for that, so why not on the official forums too?

@Benny: I am always of the opinion that your conduct ingame and on the forums should be judged separately. It's unfair and unethical to ban someone from both forum and game if they did something wrong in one of them. Misunderstandings and mistakes do happen and players/users shouldn't be punished disproportionately for it. At the end of the day, customer support and CR are so overworked and underpaid for the job they do; they are also being exploited by corporations too. So, it is not out of the realm of possibility that they make mistakes or act overzealously.