Should Blizzard consult the WoW community sooner?

[ls-]

I think your eyes were covered with Blizzard bullshit if you believe that.

Nah, been playing this game for too long, and sadly I like reading official and fan forums... Forums are echo chambers, it's kinda inevitable that even the most outrageous/stupid ideas/complaints will find broad support and approval

What Blizzard did: Didnt add any daily quest, reputation is now farmed only through painfull grind and rewards are useless.

But players had been asking for Vanilla-like farmable reputations since forever, and still do, btw

[JoaoPinga]

Here's what I've seen son far:

Feedback: Atunnements suck! Nobody is raiding! Content is too inaccessible!
Blizz: It's all fine, trust us.

Later...
Blizz: We have done some science and concluded that only 2% people are seeing all content. Let's remove attunements and make it really easy to find groups.

Feedback: Everything is so easy now. Everyone already did all content. Giff content! ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Blizz: Calm down, you are doing the content too fast.

Later...
Blizz: After extensive internal research, we found out that, in fact, people should always have something to do.

Feedback: Y U DO DIS? This is World of Dailycraft now. Why can't I just raid if I want to?
Blizz: Nope, you are supposed to do everything. EVERYTHING!

Later...
Blizz: We have been contacted by unknown mystical forces and concluded that people should be able to do what they want to, nothing should feel mandatory.

Feedback: Giff content! ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Blizz: ...

Later...
Blizz: A bird told us that people want content, but they let's not use the D world ever again.

Feedback: Too much content! Make it stop! Aahhhhh!
Blizz: Not our fault you want to do as much dps as the guy with the 2 BiS legendaries. You are clearly being competitive wrong.



So.....................
Blizzard is not nearly as oblivious as we might think. They absolutely know that legendaries aren't working. They know that AP grind feels mandatory and it hurts the game. They know everything, as they always did. But they won't admit it, not until the next expansion or so.

The cycle is always this:

Blizzard launches expansion > Feedback > Blizzard "disagrees" > ........... some time later ........... > Blizzard actually agrees with everything ever said ever > New expansion takes the feedback to extreme levels

And that's why we have this cycle of "nothing to do" and "too much to do".

So, to answer OP's question: they do listen very soon. But the answer for today's issues will come in a year or two.


TL;DR: Blizzard takes too long to respond to feedback, and when they do, they exagerate. Like, "I'm hungry", and they answer, "No you are not. Ok, fine, eat these 12 chickens".

[l33t]

You got playerhousing, Blizzard wanted it to have meaning.. Couldn't handle it.

No, I didn't. Nothing in Garrison resembles player housing, sorry.

[fragga]

Coming from somebody who has managed a large online gaming community (I part owned a very successful arma 3 community with over 500 active members) I can tell you first hand that it's impossible and I mean IMPOSSIBLE to keep gamers happy. You give them what they want and they all cry it's shit, you fix the shit and they just turn around and say "great what's next?". People become very self entitled online and I imagine blizzard must have an absolute nightmare managing a community of millions.

What they need to do is stick to their vision of the game and stop trying to change things to cater to the pressure of kids crying on the internet. I highly assume the vast majority of the player base is made up of very young people, and typically the mental bratty immaturity that comes with that age demographic puts unnecessary pressure on the devs to make changes that don't need to be made.

However I don't think this is all the communities fault...blizzard at times have had good constructive feedback from the community when some of their ideas have obvious flaws and it seems the current dev team are too arrogant to see past their own ideas. What enrages me mostly about blizzard (and others have mentioned it in this thread) is their consistent 180 approach to decisions made in the game, especially with core game design, it makes for a horrible gaming experience and is bound to upset a vast majority of the player base...I can imagine a huge drop in subs if the current 7.1.5 goes live as it is.

So in summary, make sure they have their own clear vision but don't be too ignorant to see the flaws. The community may cry a lot but none of us in reality expect perfection.

[Sithalos]

No. Most of the WoW community has no idea what they're talking about, or what they actually want.

[josempd]

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Coming from somebody who has managed a large online gaming community (I part owned a very successful arma 3 community with over 500 active members) I can tell you first hand that it's impossible and I mean IMPOSSIBLE to keep gamers happy. You give them what they want and they all cry it's shit, you fix the shit and they just turn around and say "great what's next?". People become very self entitled online and I imagine blizzard must have an absolute nightmare managing a community of millions.

What they need to do is stick to their vision of the game and stop trying to change things to cater to the pressure of kids crying on the internet. I highly assume the vast majority of the player base is made up of very young people, and typically the mental bratty immaturity that comes with that age demographic puts unnecessary pressure on the devs to make changes that don't need to be made.

However I don't think this is all the communities fault...blizzard at times have had good constructive feedback from the community when some of their ideas have obvious flaws and it seems the current dev team are too arrogant to see past their own ideas. What enrages me mostly about blizzard (and others have mentioned it in this thread) is their consistent 180 approach to decisions made in the game, especially with core game design, it makes for a horrible gaming experience and is bound to upset a vast majority of the player base...I can imagine a huge drop in subs if the current 7.1.5 goes live as it is.

So in summary, make sure they have their own clear vision but don't be too ignorant to see the flaws. The community may cry a lot but none of us in reality expect perfection.

Agreed.

At this point they should impose their vision of the game, with strict points and blend to certain feedback, keeping core (if you don't like it then you can play another game). Maybe people and also Blizzard wants WoW to be the absolute game for everyone, which cannot happen.

Also with such an ample community I feel they just need to make another IP and separate the playerbase into a more hardcore base and a casual base, sharing monetary resources and with different but similar goals. So if you don't like something you can always swap, until you find your place, what should be, and not te game changing for everyone.

[Niwes]

i would not use the term "consult". its to dedicated to "players are consultants for devs". and that wont go well ...

instead i would use the word "listen". and that is, what blizz is horribly bad in.

the devs should know what they do. they shouldnt need a community (where every second is a short term thinking idiot and dont get the greater picture and every third has another oppinion).

BUT when there are THAT lot of intelligent, differentiated, clever and smart posts, from a lot of dedicated ppl, takin the game more to heart than blizz, and not only givin feedback, but showing possible and rational and realistic/economic solutions (and do the devs work...), welll... then i would start listening and thinking about whats happening and if that ppl maybe are correct.

blizz sucks totally in that. no plan if its arrogance or stupidity.

so blizz, can you hear me ? no, you dont need to always do what a mainstream community yells around. do what you think is best for the game. but you fukin should LISTEN and THINK, and decide wisely and long term. get that ? i repeat: LISTEN. LIIIIIISTEN! dumbasses...

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No. Most of the WoW community has no idea what they're talking about, or what they actually want.

i sign that. most of them (espc when it comes down to balance issues, just see their class/view, not the greater picture).

but when it comes down to dedicated stuff, where a lot of ppl came rational to exactly the same conclusion, after endlessly think about it, check the maths, theorize long term and so on (the devs job), and the devs do totally another, mostly short term thinking, things, welll... then i strongly disagree with you.

[roninwookie]

No, I didn't. Nothing in Garrison resembles player housing, sorry.

"Nothing in Garrison resembles what i think player housing is, sorry" Fixed that for you

[Deleted]

You also forgot to consider that what you see as mistake might be a great feature for even over half of the community

[uxzuigal]

Blizzard has made many mistakes in Legion and has wasted thousands of hours of development resources on mistakes that I feel could have been avoided had they been more open earlier and decided to share their plans with the community at a much earlier time. Things like the legendary items, class design, etc.

Do you think that Blizzard should consult the WoW community more frequently and sooner to avoid making rookie errors like this? I think this would save them a lot of time not developing things that ultimately the playerbase is not interested in. It'd avoid situations like "Hey guys we made this new hunter spell!" "We hate it get rid of it!"

Because by the time Alpha has come around, they have already committed their resources and it's too late to really change much. The sooner they reach out, the more flexible they can be with their development.

They haven't wasted thousands of hours of development resources. They created things the way they wanted to. A ton of people love this game for what it is, they don't post, they do not complain, they just enjoy the game. Listening to the extremely vocal voices of those dissapointed isn't always a great idea. Most of the feedback is trash, rants and when they come with feedback that they think is usable - it's a long massive list of things, proposed fixes, math and other garble that drowns in the masses of screams because it is too long. It's fine to disagree with a developer - but you aren't a developer. You do not have the whole pictures of the massive code and backend, no single person does have that, not even at Blizzard.

So no, I don't think they should have consulted the WoW community sooner, in fact I am pretty sure they never consulted us yet. Get some feedback, take it into consideration and ponder solutions. If you want to provoid excellent feedback - make a short description of the problem, and then list the consequences of it.

Good feedback:
Problem: "I feel that the AP Grind is too long in it's current state"
Consequence: "People feel forced to grind".

Bad feedback:
"fuck you blizz, fucking ap grind, fix this shit or I unsub"
or
*Insert doctorate research into how to fix AP grind, without having anything remotely close to the full picture*

[Niwes]

Here's what I've seen son far:

Feedback: Atunnements suck! Nobody is raiding! Content is too inaccessible!
Blizz: It's all fine, trust us.

Later...
Blizz: We have done some science and concluded that only 2% people are seeing all content. Let's remove attunements and make it really easy to find groups.

Feedback: Everything is so easy now. Everyone already did all content. Giff content! ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Blizz: Calm down, you are doing the content too fast.

Later...
Blizz: After extensive internal research, we found out that, in fact, people should always have something to do.

Feedback: Y U DO DIS? This is World of Dailycraft now. Why can't I just raid if I want to?
Blizz: Nope, you are supposed to do everything. EVERYTHING!

Later...
Blizz: We have been contacted by unknown mystical forces and concluded that people should be able to do what they want to, nothing should feel mandatory.

Feedback: Giff content! ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Blizz: ...

Later...
Blizz: A bird told us that people want content, but they let's not use the D world ever again.

Feedback: Too much content! Make it stop! Aahhhhh!
Blizz: Not our fault you want to do as much dps as the guy with the 2 BiS legendaries. You are clearly being competitive wrong.



So.....................
Blizzard is not nearly as oblivious as we might think. They absolutely know that legendaries aren't working. They know that AP grind feels mandatory and it hurts the game. They know everything, as they always did. But they won't admit it, not until the next expansion or so.

The cycle is always this:

Blizzard launches expansion > Feedback > Blizzard "disagrees" > ........... some time later ........... > Blizzard actually agrees with everything ever said ever > New expansion takes the feedback to extreme levels

And that's why we have this cycle of "nothing to do" and "too much to do".

So, to answer OP's question: they do listen very soon. But the answer for today's issues will come in a year or two.


TL;DR: Blizzard takes too long to respond to feedback, and when they do, they exagerate. Like, "I'm hungry", and they answer, "No you are not. Ok, fine, eat these 12 chickens".

truth in that. blizz showed since day 1 that they tend to always swing between both extreme ends of everything. was always also the same with balancing.

so, what does this mean ? what is the conclusion of mind, when someone endlessly swinging between extremes ?

1) he do not learn. he is learn resistent.
2) he is wether rational nor differentiated to find a mid way.
3) he do not listen

thats exactly what blizz is.

[Deleted]

No, it wasn't.

Community wanted player housing. They got shit on a stick with no customisation but with tons of freeware stuff and facebook gaming instead.
Community wanted less dailies. They got shit on a stick and absolutely no dailies at all.
Community wanted flying. They got shit on a stick and were forced to nofly for 2/3 of of expansion.
Community wanted the game to be less single player rpg and more mmorpg. They got shit on a stick and were forced to play a "commander".
etc, etc.
The list can be a mile long, because WoD is anything but what community wanted. WoD is what developers wanted, though.

I like how you just generalized millions of people into one, same-thinking group, it's not like there are thousands of opinions for each topic. Just the fact that you can find people claiming that Legion is the best expansion ever as well as people claiming it's the worst xpac kinda suggest your post to be bs

[Darkeon]

When we get to a point that we are at today, where feedback isn't being received, Blizzard has two choices of path:
- either stop pretending that player feedback it's something valuable to them and, subsequently, stop asking for it;
- or indeed consult and act upon the available proper feedback.

What we currently have is a travesty of PR talk.

[Thelxi]

I wouldn't say so. Should they overall act faster? sometimes yes. But I don't think the problem is them not listening to the community. It's not like they are throwing metal parties up in a tower somewhere. They know what's up, it just takes them very long to get anything done.

[MoanaLisa]

Quite the opposite. They should make the game they want and as customers we can either play it or not. The idea that this "community" should be treated like consultants is about the dumbest thing I've read this morning.

[uxzuigal]

Quite the opposite. They should make the game they want and as customers we can either play it or not. The idea that this "community" should be treated like consultants is about the dumbest thing I've read this morning.

Thank you.

[Team]

Old School Runescape does this and even though it's a smaller game, it goes both ways. They use the poll system so for example, "should we implement giant tits on characters?" and if it gets 75% of the populations vote it will get implemented. It's good at times but it can also be bad. It's good because the devs usually get more of a feel for what the community wants, but it's horrible because a lot of people suggest stupid ass shit that eventually gets enough support to make it into the game a.k.a the game loses it's original feel. You get more idiots feeling entitled, shitting on the devs even more because "we didn't want that@@!@$!@$!@$$@!"

WoW is so massive, with much higher costs, that I doubt they'd even consider coming to the community.

[Alvito]

Well that's what I mean. Should the feedback process start sooner before the developers have already committed so many resources to the development of the product? Because by the time Alpha arrives most of the feedback is pretty much useless as pretty much everything has been developed.

Legion had the longest alpha and beta testing of any expansion so far. How much more time do we need to give feed back? You can't really give feed back prior to alpha because the devs aren't 100% set on what they are doing to present a good product and the players certainly won't understand their vision. It is like asking somebody if they like the dinner you are going to cool while you are shopping for the food.

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If they lack the foresight to see how problematic systems like their legendary system would be, maybe they do need to.

The legendary system is not nearly as big of a deal as people make it out to be. Sure there are a handful of items that are better then others. That was true of old legendary items before. You can still play extremely well without that great item your spec has. The people bitching are the ones that need the legendary to compete, because on an even playing ground they can not.

[manypillars]

They consult the community early. But they're married to their plans/design philosophy to the point where any change in direction is unacceptable even if not changing is detrimental to the game. Unless this changes community feedback other than steep subscriber loss is unlikely to even be considered. I'd like to say this is a poor way to do business, but even in this thread you have people who in all seriousness say the community should never, ever be taken into consideration for any reason and players should just STFU. If nothing else, Blizzard is pleasing this group by, well, ignoring feedback.

[Raven]

Since most of the community only thinks about what they themself would like and how to make their class good, and have no thought at all on balance betwen spells and classes and stuff like that, so they should not listen and they have already a couple of times listen to much.