Ghostcrawler: "player feedback is nearly always too long"

[rda]

I don't see the point of that at all.

This is a prime example of what Ghostcrawler mentioning as a player-presented solution without properly addressing the problem.

You believe the problem is that Devs aren't listening. This leads to a proposal for CMs to collect data from the community directly through a dedicated thread, then address them accordingly without hampering the devs. The problem with this solution is that it doesn't solve anything. The CM's aren't lacking data; [...]

But hey, this isn't an excuse for lack of feedback or whatever. I'm simply pointing out the egregious flaws in an open feedback system; it's not going to solve the underlying problems of the fanbase thinking Blizzard doesn't listen enough.

Let me explain.

I am not proposing a solution to the communication issue.

The solution is actually not that involved, it is called - get a reliable channel of communication to the devs with the latency of a work day, and effing use it - and yes, I know what I am talking about, this is completely doable in more than one way, ie, in one of the shops I've been on this was done by having every dev rotate for three days each six months into Q&A where he would then communicate directly. It was and still is a big shop, bigger than Blizzard, just in case. There are other, even better solutions, too.

But I am not proposing a solution. I understand that my posts might give an impression that I want to dictate how Blizzard CMs should work, while in fact, I couldn't care less as to how they do it. All the specific things like "do this, do that" I am saying simply to illustrate that they are getting drowned in a teaspoon, that it is *easy* to do *much* better. You just have to, you know, work. Work instead of writing stupid posts about how it all is very difficult (that's half of their posts, by the way, they spend half of their time telling that they work as best as they can instead of actually working, go check, Ornyx just spent another work day on that, let's discuss what works better: writing a series of posts with "guys, I am taking offense at your use of the word 'lie' bla bla bla" or getting some actual answers to questions selected in a non-ideal way).

Count the total number of blue posts on subject matters. *A single person* can do several times that number per day without so much as sweating. The number of subject posts they do is completely abysmal. Again, I know what I am talking about. This has been going on for years. There is a big problem. That's all I am saying.

- - - Updated - - -

Just so we are completely clear.

Yes, the problem is that the devs aren't listening. Exactly that. There are perhaps multiple reasons and maybe some history of why and how it got to this, but I don't really care about any of that. I can tell you stories like that all day long myself, they don't really matter in the end. There is a problem. A big one. It goes unfixed for years. And, no, it is not getting better. The end.

[Nuba]

Came in just to remember that ghostcrawler only brought bad things into wow. he was a shitty (super shitty!) dev and I have no idea why people still want to take him into consideration

[Relapses]

Came in just to remember that ghostcrawler only brought bad things into wow. he was a shitty (super shitty!) dev and I have no idea why people still want to take him into consideration

Yep. As a guy who has been the main contributor of design philosophy on three of the most successful games of all time, it's clear Ghostcrawler has no idea what he's doing.

[Tharkkun]

Let me explain.

I am not proposing a solution to the communication issue.

The solution is actually not that involved, it is called - get a reliable channel of communication to the devs with the latency of a work day, and effing use it - and yes, I know what I am talking about, this is completely doable in more than one way, ie, in one of the shops I've been on this was done by having every dev rotate for three days each six months into Q&A where he would then communicate directly. It was and still is a big shop, bigger than Blizzard, just in case. There are other, even better solutions, too.

But I am not proposing a solution. I understand that my posts might give an impression that I want to dictate how Blizzard CMs should work, while in fact, I couldn't care less as to how they do it. All the specific things like "do this, do that" I am saying simply to illustrate that they are getting drowned in a teaspoon, that it is *easy* to do *much* better. You just have to, you know, work. Work instead of writing stupid posts about how it all is very difficult (that's half of their posts, by the way, they spend half of their time telling that they work as best as they can instead of actually working, go check, Ornyx just spent another work day on that, let's discuss what works better: writing a series of posts with "guys, I am taking offense at your use of the word 'lie' bla bla bla" or getting some actual answers to questions selected in a non-ideal way).

Count the total number of blue posts on subject matters. *A single person* can do several times that number per day without so much as sweating. The number of subject posts they do is completely abysmal. Again, I know what I am talking about. This has been going on for years. There is a big problem. That's all I am saying.

- - - Updated - - -

Just so we are completely clear.

Yes, the problem is that the devs aren't listening. Exactly that. There are perhaps multiple reasons and maybe some history of why and how it got to this, but I don't really care about any of that. I can tell you stories like that all day long myself, they don't really matter in the end. There is a problem. A big one. It goes unfixed for years. And, no, it is not getting better. The end.

AS a company Blizzard stepped back in public communication after Ghostcrawler left. That was designed. Especially after WOD when people tore apart any vision or design they communicated before it happened. You know...because change. So I don't blame them for communicating at the same level as every other product on the market right now. In fact they still communicate more but players still hold them to the GC standard even though that's 2 expansions ago.

[Katchii]

Hey Captain Obvious... I even stated exactly THIS in my "long over the top" post. In the very last sentence even...

Then again, who are you to decide wether or not it is too long simply because you (I could say attention span, but I think that is rude and I don't mean to be) currently don't want to read long posts.
Blizzard has not given parameters for us to know if a post is too long or not.

There's no set criteria anywhere that says what is too long or too short in length as it greatly depends on the content being discussed. In corporate environments, written communications about most things are expected to be pretty short, 1-2 paragraphs tops. Anything longer and you should be a having a meeting about it and the precursor e-mail about the subject should give just enough information to justify why you need a meeting. These communications should stick to the facts and contain very little if any "feelings" or "thoughts" as they're usually not relevant to the discussion (your feeling isn't going to fix the problem, and your thoughts need to be further vetted before possible implementation and needs further discussion in a meeting most likely and is therefore not relevant in the e-mail). The only time this would be not true is if you're considered a subject matter expert by the people you're communicating with and are truly giving your expert opinion. The vast majority of players, I'd wager, are not anywhere close to being a subject matter expert on WoW development.

That said, we don't have the option to have a meeting with the devs so all the information needs to be written down. But Blizzard is pretty corporate I'd imagine, and have jobs to do outside of reading and deciphering forum posts. So the information should be clear and concise and easy for them to turn into a couple bullet points so THEY can bring it to their internal meetings to discuss and decide what to do about it. As already stated above, since the vast majority of players are not subject matter experts or WoW developers, their opinion on how to fix a problem is likely not going to align with the big picture the developers have...how (and if) to fix something is up to the developers to decide. They simply need as much factual, objective information about the problem as possible so they can create a reasonable, feasible and realistic action plan.

I agree 100% on what GC said here.

[Varaben]

Two things.

First, you're obviously creating a false dichotomy here. Players CAN give concise, actionable feedback, but they do not. They tend to say next to nothing (which isn't actionable) or write a novella (which isn't actionable). You can't reasonably expect Blizzard to read every asinine forum thread.

Second, players don't often know what they want. Even if they do make a concise, clear argument for a feature, it could either be not feasible (players aren't developers, despite what you read on the forums), or just not attractive from a system view. Could blizzard make a legendary token system in which case you loot a token, then buy the legendary you want? Sure, there's no good reason that's not feasible. But SHOULD they? I think not. RNG and the excitement of getting a new item is not something you want to take out of games. They need to feel rewarding and if all the gear you got came from tokens, you would not like this game.

But players don't like to be told what they will or won't like. It sounds condescending. And it sounds like the infamous "You think you want it, but you don't" that was said in relation to classic WoW realms. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean it's not true. I think it's Blizzard's job to make a great game, not to appeal to every whim of every player. This is not a democracy.

Even if every player wanted X feature, that doesn't make it good for the game. Even if every player agrees that Y feature should be removed, that doesn't make it a good decision. And so it goes with feedback. Players think they know everything that will fix this game, and they just don't. So, no, it's not blizzard's job to read all the forum posts and act on them. Because 9 times out of 10, players are wrong or what they want to do isn't feasible (cost-wise or technical-wise).

[Thimagryn]

The solution is actually not that involved, it is called - get a reliable channel of communication to the devs with the latency of a work day, and effing use it - and yes, I know what I am talking about, this is completely doable in more than one way, ie, in one of the shops I've been on this was done by having every dev rotate for three days each six months into Q&A where he would then communicate directly. It was and still is a big shop, bigger than Blizzard, just in case. There are other, even better solutions, too.

Just being curious, what kind of shop/company was this that we're talking about here? Is this an entertainment/creative related field that yields similar problems that an MMO or related videogame developer would face?

Just so we are completely clear.

Yes, the problem is that the devs aren't listening. Exactly that. There are perhaps multiple reasons and maybe some history of why and how it got to this, but I don't really care about any of that. I can tell you stories like that all day long myself, they don't really matter in the end. There is a problem. A big one. It goes unfixed for years. And, no, it is not getting better. The end.

I don't disagree, but I also don't agree. I think there's too many variables to say either 'they are' or 'they aren't'. Communication is definitely something that can always be improved, but like others have been mentioning, since Ghostcrawler left all communication has been given at arms length and that's been the new stance. The game also didn't change or incorporate all the feedback that GC was taking in either, and he held no townhall meetings with the public. TBH, little is different in how they are developing WoW, other than the direction of the game now compared to back then.

[rda]

Just being curious, what kind of shop/company was this that we're talking about here? Is this an entertainment/creative related field that yields similar problems that an MMO or related videogame developer would face?

This was a company doing software / services other than games, but the challenges on the front of feedback are all the same (the idea that part of challenges in gaming are different because the community is somehow particularly toxic is completely wrong, those who say things like that never saw real near-religious rage regarding other things, "you are nerfing my class!!11!" is peanuts compared to "you suckers are intentionally making me buy that other thing", and "you are ignoring everything we ever said to you" as well as 99% of everything else is exactly the same).

[Tharkkun]

Hey Captain Obvious... I even stated exactly THIS in my "long over the top" post. In the very last sentence even...

Then again, who are you to decide wether or not it is too long simply because you (I could say attention span, but I think that is rude and I don't mean to be) currently don't want to read long posts.
Blizzard has not given parameters for us to know if a post is too long or not.

Attention span is very much a factor and it's not rude to say that. After doing IT for almost 19 years if someone opens up a ticket or bug report and writes a wall I ask them to summarize it because I don't want to know their life story. I want to know what the problem is. There are some pretty creative people out there so I apologize if I was rude. It just stood out as an example.

[beanman12345]

I get they might not want super long messages, and that long messages isn't useful for bugs. Feed back on most stuff however needs a bit more response than the 140 twitter character length. It's not the case that nearly always when feedback is given it's a thesis. Sounds like it's just an excuse for lazyness to not want to read actual feedback tbh.

[Thimagryn]

The toxicity isn't my concern as much as being unable to meet player feedback expectations.

Open forum feedback is tricky when dealing with people's passions, and I think that's one of the unique elements that makes videogame development feedback different than a more technical or professional oriented company. Your suggestion may work, but it may also have unforeseen consequences since you're missing some critical factors that don't account for how passionate the fanbase is, and how critical each individual's feedback is being considered whether it is addressed or not.

Do you think with what Oryx addressed about flight and communicating the developer's stance on flight properly satisfies all the pro-flight crowd? I'm pro flight, I'm in agreement with his statements that Blizzard has a clear on which direction they want to take flight, and I don't think that this answer will satisfy the pro-flight crowd. The passionate fanbase will continue to speak out on the subject because it's what concerns them the most, and this creates a disproportionate illusion that the issue is more important than it really is. When Blizzard gives a reply that isn't satisfactory, then it's good as having said nothing at all. It leads to the conclusion that Blizzard isn't listening. I mean look at how the Vanilla crowd perceives Blizzard's stance on legacy servers back; none of them are happy.

I'm not familiar with what software/service company you worked at so it's hard to make any comments on it. If you think the feedback system works, then I'm more concerned with what kind of audience/customer base the company has. Game development is a unique realm where passions fly high because entertainment is an absolutely subjective topic. Games aren't a clear product that is easily identifiable as 'broken' or 'need fixing' when every feature and system is valued differently from person to person. It's like trying to make a movie that will appeal to everyone, without making the movie that appeals to no one.

[rda]

The toxicity isn't my concern as much as being unable to meet player feedback expectations. [...]

You aren't looking to achieve the situation where nobody rages, that's impossible. You are looking to achieve the situation where your communication happens so oftenly and you carry it so clearly in the interests of customers (ie, you are clearly looking to fix things) that whenever someone rages, it's other users who tell them to please calm down *and help them solve their problems before you even arrive*. You never react to rage, you ignore it and go straight to its source (ie, "thanks a lot for reporting that, it's already fixed, the update is scheduled to go out on date X <which is close>"). And if you are communicating frequently, you almost always know all the pain points right off the bat.

What Ornyx wrote on flight in this thread here was nonsense. He didn't even say what their position is, all he concentrated on was that players won't get much in the way of response and that they consider the topic closed. Even that was wrong, they will reopen the topic in two minutes if enough players revolt. He kept focusing on the negatives without the positives (ie, how about this: "we saw how much players care about flying in WoD, that's why we decided to bring it a bit faster in Legion and are doing special class mounts which all can fly, getting flying should be a celebration"). He was so bad, it'd have been better for the blues if he said nothing at all.

This - "Game development is a unique realm where passions fly high because entertainment is an absolutely subjective topic." - is wrong in that the word unique does not exist. I can assure you that passions fly high for everything. Try reading about Subaru vs Mercedes or about politics or about anything really. What we have wrt passion in WoW is absolutely not unique.

[Craaazyyy]

blizzard are just dumb

[Thimagryn]

You aren't looking to achieve the situation where nobody rages, that's impossible. You are looking to achieve the situation where your communication happens so oftenly and you carry it so clearly in the interests of customers (ie, you are clearly looking to fix things) that whenever someone rages, it's other users who tell them to please calm down *and help them solve their problems before you even arrive*.

I think that's an idealistic and unrealistic expectation. We have that right now, and it simply gets divided into extremes. You're either Pro-Change or a Blizzard Fanboy/SJW White Knight. This is simply how things play out. Other users can't really tell anyone to calm down. As I said previously, passions run high, and when someone tries to dim the flames, things tend to get confrontational and get pulled into the extremes. I agree with your main point that it's not a goal to reach a no-rage situation, but a hands-off approach tends to be the most diplomatic solution. I think Watercooler dev reports and directed responses to topics are the most effective ways to control communication, even though they may not be effective in addressing pressing issues. Even then, it tends to be subject to overanalysis or nitpicked criticisms that get taken out of context.

What Ornyx wrote on flight in this thread here was nonsense. He didn't even say what their position is, all he concentrated on was that players won't get much in the way of response and that they consider the topic closed. Even that was wrong, they will reopen the topic in two minutes if enough players revolt. He kept focusing on the negatives without the positives (ie, how about this: "we saw how much players care about flying in WoD, that's why we decided to bring it a bit faster in Legion and are doing special class mounts which all can fly, getting flying should be a celebration"). He was so bad, it'd have been better for the blues if he said nothing at all.

The position is the same as it's been since WoD (post Pathfinder), and that much is clear even for someone like me who isn't even playing WoW. They are clear on reasons why they don't want flight immediately. The only issue here is that we don't agree with what's been said. That's not the same as saying they didn't say anything at all. If you don't consider this response to be meaningful, then this is a prime example of what I stated earlier - a direct response will be considered meaningless if it is deemed unsatisfactory by the individual.

This - "Game development is a unique realm where passions fly high because entertainment is an absolutely subjective topic." - is wrong in that the word unique does not exist. I can assure you that passions fly high for everything. Try reading about Subaru vs Mercedes or about politics or about anything really. What we have wrt passion in WoW is absolutely not unique.

I think they are because of external factors. The anonymity of social media, the pay-per-month service plans, the lack of understanding by the player base on how games are developed, the lack of professional insight in general, and the incredibly diverse audience causes game development to be incredibly unique when compared to a similar Car or Sports enthusiast. Even Movies differ in how the medium is consumed and how they are developed to suit the needs of the consumer. I generally wouldn't think Mercedes enthusiasts are actively attacking Mercedes for making their cars too family friendly, yet that's the kind of audience we have here with games. We're not talking about Subaru vs Mercedes, which is Company vs Company, where the passion is attributed to pride in a product. This is more like 2 door vs 4 door, where enthusiasts assume making the cars with more/less doors would effectively destroy the company. And the thing is, they would not be wrong, because this is an extension of their passion.

I would like to say that this was an extreme, but this is a fairly common example considering something like RNG Legendary drop rates caused people to believe the game is broken and unplayable. Fact is, the system wasn't broken, it wasn't a technical issue and simply one of perception and random luck. There isn't anything in the Car enthusiast world that is really comparable to phenomenon like this.

[Lane]

AS a company Blizzard stepped back in public communication after Ghostcrawler left. That was designed. Especially after WOD when people tore apart any vision or design they communicated before it happened. You know...because change.

I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to, but there's a difference between change and design decisions that end up executed poorly. Most of the complaints about Legion date back to beta if not earlier and probably could've been pointed out during conception. I've gotten the impression for awhile now that there isn't much playstyle diversity on the development team, so maybe what's obvious to players isn't readily obvious to them. This is generally where feedback should come into play.

The exception being if something's designed a certain way because that's how they want it and they don't care if players like it or not, but aside from flying (which they've even admitted they're internally torn on) I've rarely seen that expressed. There generally seems to be an air of surprise and/or confusion even for the most obvious of things (from player PoV), like Ornyx's example of Lore not understanding why players are still concerned about reputation on alts.

There's no set criteria anywhere that says what is too long or too short in length as it greatly depends on the content being discussed. In corporate environments, written communications about most things are expected to be pretty short, 1-2 paragraphs tops.

There is if you count the suggestion box within the game, which I believe is 500-something characters, about enough for two paragraphs.

[skitzy129]

^ITT: textbook examples of exactly what GC is talking about.

So don't use description, detail, intelligence in feedback? Gotcha. Forgot we're living in the 140 character social media kneejerk thought world where all reason and logic is thrown to the side for sarcasm and meme one liners.

MMOC needs to stop bringing up this idiot. He isn't relevant anymore.

[Katchii]

So don't use description, detail, intelligence in feedback? Gotcha. Forgot we're living in the 140 character social media kneejerk thought world where all reason and logic is thrown to the side for sarcasm and meme one liners.

MMOC needs to stop bringing up this idiot. He isn't relevant anymore.

1) The post being quoted was mostly an opinion piece and didn't really add anything new to the conversation except an example using a chef as a proxy for Blizzard devs and a restaurant in place of WoW.

2) GC while not directly relevant to WoW, is still a very successful, knowledgeable and experienced developer who is employed by one of the most successful developers out there and has worked on at least three highly successful games, so you saying that "he isn't relevant anymore" is factually incorrect.

I've honestly found his insights and experiences with game development pretty enlightening, as I am personally completely inexperienced in that realm so. A lot of his insights though are pretty universal in their application in working with a team, ensuring you use quality and relevant data to make your decisions, asking the right questions about how, when and where to apply a fix, etc...

[Seramore]

So don't use description, detail, intelligence in feedback? Gotcha. Forgot we're living in the 140 character social media kneejerk thought world where all reason and logic is thrown to the side for sarcasm and meme one liners.

MMOC needs to stop bringing up this idiot. He isn't relevant anymore.

I get the feeling that the people who say this kind of thing are the same type of people who would write up a 10 paragraph post that would ultimately get ignored by Blizzard for being too long.

[WowIsDead64]

I get the feeling that the people who say this kind of thing are the same type of people who would write up a 10 paragraph post that would ultimately get ignored by Blizzard for being too long.

It's just excuses, used to justify fact, that devs simply ignore feedback:

<No fly - no buy> - not constructive
<Explain, that ground content is immersive first time only and it's too frustrating without flying> - this is your personal opinion - not enough to make change
<Explain, why you don't enjoy game without flying, provide examples + possible solutions> - need more info, cuz we don't want to fix symptoms - we may have better solution
... - not enough
... - still not enough evidence
... - nope
<Designing Virtual Worlds/Motivations of Play in Online Games> - too long, didn't read.
<RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEEEE> - *you're now banned/in black list*

[Seramore]

It's just excuses, used to justify fact, that devs simply ignore feedback:

<No fly - no buy> - not constructive
<Explain, that ground content is immersive first time only and it's too frustrating without flying> - this is your personal opinion - not enough to make change
<Explain, why you don't enjoy game without flying, provide examples + possible solutions> - need more info, cuz we don't want to fix symptoms - we may have better solution
...
...
...
<Designing Virtual Worlds/Motivations of Play in Online Games> - too long, didn't read.
<RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEEEE> - *you're now banned/in black list*

Please stop posting in this thread