Are blue posts a waste of time?

[fragga]

Ok let me just state that I'm not talking about blue posts informing us of change X or patch Y what i am referring to is the blue posts that relate to responses from the community forums.

I've been playing wow for 6 years now and largely through that time I can't help but think that the community 90% of the time is more or less wasting their time giving any kind of criticism on blizzards decisions.

The vast majority of blue posts are typically quite ignorant of the posters question and tends to answer questions with a question, it's a typical avoidance tactic. A lot of the time I feel the answers are somewhat arrogant, I'm not sure if you will agree with me here but quite often blue posts have a certain sense of 'its our game and we will do whatever the hell we want with it' vibe about them.

What boils my piss even more is when blizzard blue post responses to blatantly inconstructive questions ans ignore the more founded questions they will find difficult to answer.

I mean lets be honest when was the last time you ever read a blue post that said 'you guys are right, we got that wrong and we apologise for making a mess of that experience for our paying customers who support and love the game'

TLDR, blizzard too often makes out they are perfect, they are right and we are wrong an rarely ever back down from their design decisions no matter how much the community complains about it

[bajskorv]

it's a typical avoidance tactic.

That's their job and now that you've realized it you can ignore them and go about your days at least a little bit more happily than you did when they used to annoy you. Congratulations.

[MMOTotal]

I want more dev interaction, apart from GC we get nothing. The EU forums are barren compared to the US forums. We had a lengthy post a while back on consuming content to fast in the Cata dull period during DS and we got Dratzel saying he is giving the opinions to the developers but I want to know what they think there and then.

[Sigma]

TLDR, blizzard too often makes out they are perfect, they are right and we are wrong an rarely ever back down from their design decisions no matter how much the community complains about it

it is their game, Not ours. No matter how much people complain about things we "the players" have absolutely no right to have any decision making capabilities within the design of the game, can you imagine the mess it would be in now if even 1% of the suggestions that people make made it into the game.

if you do not like the way it is going that's ok. I learned along time ago in CS for a large telecoms company that you would never EVER be able to make every single person happy in regards to a service that's being delivered. its just not possible.

as for some of the comments that the "Blues" make, yes some of them are less than professional, some of them are down right rude at times, but these types of posts are often needed to put people in their place and show people who is in charge, And yes some of them do avoid questions, this could be due to any number of reasons. The main one I am sure is that they just dont know the answer. After all they are the point of contact between the players, and the developers and designers who are I would expect to be busy actually creating stuff for the game.

[Saffa]

Ok let me just state that I'm not talking about blue posts informing us of change X or patch Y what i am referring to is the blue posts that relate to responses from the community forums.

I've been playing wow for 6 years now and largely through that time I can't help but think that the community 90% of the time is more or less wasting their time giving any kind of criticism on blizzards decisions.

The vast majority of blue posts are typically quite ignorant of the posters question and tends to answer questions with a question, it's a typical avoidance tactic. A lot of the time I feel the answers are somewhat arrogant, I'm not sure if you will agree with me here but quite often blue posts have a certain sense of 'its our game and we will do whatever the hell we want with it' vibe about them.

What boils my piss even more is when blizzard blue post responses to blatantly inconstructive questions ans ignore the more founded questions they will find difficult to answer.

I mean lets be honest when was the last time you ever read a blue post that said 'you guys are right, we got that wrong and we apologise for making a mess of that experience for our paying customers who support and love the game'

TLDR, blizzard too often makes out they are perfect, they are right and we are wrong an rarely ever back down from their design decisions no matter how much the community complains about it

When they tried to implement real id in forum there was a real outcry and they did change their minds. Usually outcries are a small number who are complaining about something that effects them, that is a few people against the mass of 9-10 million players. Just because 20,000 want something why should blizz pay attention when 9-10 million less the 20,000 are NOT complaining. Empty tin cans make the most noise and Blizz is well aware the ones screaming and filling their nappies are a small, very small, percentage of the player base. And just because you, your guild and your friends want something does not make you the majority and Blizz is concerned with the big picture not the whining few.

[Mormolyce]

I mean lets be honest when was the last time you ever read a blue post that said 'you guys are right, we got that wrong and we apologise for making a mess of that experience for our paying customers who support and love the game'

I have actually seen those occasionally. But not that often because frankly 99% of player complaints on the official forums are stupid and if Blizzard implemented a fraction of what those people want the game would suck balls.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

What boils my piss even more is when blizzard blue post responses to blatantly inconstructive questions ans ignore the more founded questions they will find difficult to answer.

They search for unique things to answer, or things that can be framed in what they want you to know.

It does come off at times as reaching, but they're as disconnected to the community as a doctor to his 100th patient.

They don't understand how changing healing, for example will affect a player if they heal. They see the game as the numbers, and they ask the community to report things by the numbers. Sometimes they have too as it would be chaos otherwise, but it also makes them feel that much more disconnected.

They also have preconceived ideas of the player base, and it can be wrong at times. That tunnel vision of people in the game only want what's in it for them has hardened them to believe everyone is like that, and everyone is gaming the system.

So while fanbois cheer and emulate the Blizzard devs, others can see them as scientists looking at specimens. One particular dev over there really comes off to me like that, so much so, when I even see that dev's name I wish Blizzard had a knifing challenge...as I'll camp that dev for 100 dogtags cold.

[Mooboy]

When they tried to implement real id in forum there was a real outcry and they did change their minds. Usually outcries are a small number who are complaining about something that effects them, that is a few people against the mass of 9-10 million players. Just because 20,000 want something why should blizz pay attention when 9-10 million less the 20,000 are NOT complaining. Empty tin cans make the most noise and Blizz is well aware the ones screaming and filling their nappies are a small, very small, percentage of the player base. And just because you, your guild and your friends want something does not make you the majority and Blizz is concerned with the big picture not the whining few.

That Real ID thing is one of the most misunderstood things in WoW, the players thought their little forum protest changed somthing, when the fact is that change would have broken privacy laws in a number of countries so they couldn't do it.

But it set the idea that if you bitch and moan about something for long enough it'll change, now i'm not saying everything they add is good and people should say when there's something THEY don't like, but like the current "dailies" thing don't expect it to change just because you keep seeing posts that ignore whats been said, like they guy I'm quoting points out, they have the bigger picture.

[Defengar]

No... no complaint before or since about blizzard has ever even come close to being the shitstorm that was Real ID. Fucking hell, there was a 50,000 post sticky thread of almost universal hatred of it, the forums were unusable, the blues had to bring in CM's to help with the spam no one had ever seen posts from before, people were hating on it in in-game trade chat even. Complaints were being filed to the ESRB and being sent to news organizations, and moderators like Bashiok were taught how fucked you can get when someone who doesn't like you online finds out your real name (after 4chan got ahold of it he locked down his facebook and mostly disappeared from the forums for a couple weeks, likely to unsub from the thousands of porn sites people signed him up for, and to try to deal with the thousands of pizza's that were ordered to his house). The hate was still growing three days in when they relented over it. If they hadn't I don't doubt it may have become on par with the shitstorm that occurred in 2000 over that shitty videogame George Romero made that had the poster add that said he was going to make everyone his bitch and had been hyped for years.
Chances are the forums would have been hacked, CM's would have started receiving death threats, and masses of people would have started leaving. One of the worst PR disasters in the history of gaming, and one of the quickest major backtracks in blizzard history.

I still think Blizz may try it again someday. Its very clear they were trying to eventually cook up some sort of facebook integration BS.

[Kangodo]

I've been playing wow for 6 years now and largely through that time I can't help but think that the community 90% of the time is more or less wasting their time giving any kind of criticism on blizzards decisions.

I always believed the community was wasting THEIR time by asking stupid questions.

The vast majority of blue posts are typically quite ignorant of the posters question and tends to answer questions with a question, it's a typical avoidance tactic.

Can you give examples of the avoidance tactics?
If you don't understand the answer OR if the answer is not to your liking, does not mean that it's a 'tactic'.

A lot of the time I feel the answers are somewhat arrogant, I'm not sure if you will agree with me here but quite often blue posts have a certain sense of 'its our game and we will do whatever the hell we want with it' vibe about them.

That must be why they ask our opinions all the time, because they will do whatever they want?

I mean lets be honest when was the last time you ever read a blue post that said 'you guys are right, we got that wrong and we apologise for making a mess of that experience for our paying customers who support and love the game'

They do sometimes, when it's like that.
But most of the times they did something which only upsets a little portion of their playerbase.
They don't have to apologize for doing something that a small minority dislikes.

TLDR, blizzard too often makes out they are perfect, they are right and we are wrong an rarely ever back down from their design decisions no matter how much the community complains about it

That's because in 99% of the time, they are right and you are wrong.
Remember all the bullshit about LFR?
People complaining, ranting, crying because they dislike it?
They have the numbers, they don't get emotional, they use facts. So of course they are right and 'you' are wrong.

TL;DR - Blizzard is like any company in service towards customers: Act normal and they'll treat you right.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

I always believed the community was wasting THEIR time by asking stupid questions.

Really?

Blizzard wouldn't exist if not for that community. That community is what pays the bills and has you your MoP.

[Porimlys]

TLDR, blizzard too often makes out they are perfect, they are right and we are wrong an rarely ever back down from their design decisions no matter how much the community complains about it

That's really not true

[Jeffrew]

Ok let me just state that I'm not talking about blue posts informing us of change X or patch Y what i am referring to is the blue posts that relate to responses from the community forums.

I've been playing wow for 6 years now and largely through that time I can't help but think that the community 90% of the time is more or less wasting their time giving any kind of criticism on blizzards decisions.

That's how I see it too.

[Xeraxis]

Really?

Blizzard wouldn't exist if not for that community. That community is what pays the bills and has you your MoP.

The community of idiots he was referring to? Just because someone pays Blizzard to play their game doesn't mean that person is as mindless as most of the forum posters. I'm aware you spend most of your time trying to cry foul over what Blizzard has done to 'you' but you really need to step back and realize they are not as clueless as you'd like to believe.

[Haven]

quite often blue posts have a certain sense of 'its our game and we will do whatever the hell we want with it' vibe about them.

And what's wrong with this vibe if it's actually friggin' true? If community was to make this game, it would suck terribly. Nerf/buff wars would break and make classes godlike in a matter of weeks, only a chosen 1% would get to see raiding. I get this impression from the complaints. People complain over everything. They lament old times and bitch about the new ones. New features suck because they are too casual, old features suck because they're too hardcore.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

The community of idiots he was referring to? Just because someone pays Blizzard to play their game doesn't mean that person is as mindless as most of the forum posters. I'm aware you spend most of your time trying to cry foul over what Blizzard has done to 'you' but you really need to step back and realize they are not as clueless as you'd like to believe.

Knock, knock: that community is YOU.

Oblivious to it even!

[Shamatastic]

You guys who are all defending blizz as if they are going to read this and pat you on the back are wasting your time. I've seen great suggestions and legitimate complaints go ignored by blizz. I've also witnessed countless replies by blue posts that give you run around answers.

Yes there are ridiculous suggestions but there are so many good ideas. Blizz's team should do a better job at making positive changes for their players. They get paid enough to.

If your argument is its their game their rules think about if your bank had that belief. It's my bank you put your money here I tell you how its going to work for you vs the other way around. Of course this is an extreme but same concept. If you're fed up with what you've invested and you feel like your style of game is no longer represented then I think its time to step away from the game.

At the moment there are roughly 9 million people who are okay with it and until that number changes nothing will happen.

Point of this post, go study game design and create your own game. =)

[Xeraxis]

You guys who are all defending blizz as if they are going to read this and pat you on the back are wasting your time. I've seen great suggestions and legitimate complaints go ignored by blizz. I've also witnessed countless replies by blue posts that give you run around answers.

Yes there are ridiculous suggestions but there are so many good ideas. Blizz's team should do a better job at making positive changes for their players. They get paid enough to.

If your argument is its their game their rules think about if your bank had that belief. It's my bank you put your money here I tell you how its going to work for you vs the other way around. Of course this is an extreme but same concept. If you're fed up with what you've invested and you feel like your style of game is no longer represented then I think its time to step away from the game.

At the moment there are roughly 9 million people who are okay with it and until that number changes nothing will happen.

Point of this post, go study game design and create your own game. =)

So because they don't post in the thread where 'great suggestions and legitimate complaints' are posted that must mean they didn't even read it?

Positive changes? Oh you mean like the ability to wear gear from previous tiers because it looks better than the current tier or the ability to find other people to raid with who have the same time as you? Yeah those positive changes will never go in because of Blizzard's inability to read forums.

I can take my gaming or my business/personal accounts elsewhere so yes a bank or Blizzard can do as they please. It falls on the consumer to decide if that's what they want or not.

It changed to 10 million a couple months ago.

Your last point pretty much contradicts everything you said. Are you trying to defeat your own case?

[Shamatastic]

So because they don't post in the thread where 'great suggestions and legitimate complaints' are posted that must mean they didn't even read it?

Positive changes? Oh you mean like the ability to wear gear from previous tiers because it looks better than the current tier or the ability to find other people to raid with who have the same time as you? Yeah those positive changes will never go in because of Blizzard's inability to read forums.

I can take my gaming or my business/personal accounts elsewhere so yes a bank or Blizzard can do as they please. It falls on the consumer to decide if that's what they want or not.

It changed to 10 million a couple months ago.

Your last point pretty much contradicts everything you said. Are you trying to defeat your own case?

My point is like everything there's a choice and the person investing has to decide when enough is enough. If you don't feel like your voice is heard and if good suggestions that will make the game better are being ignored then move on. Create your own game. Blizz has made it clear regardless of being right or wrong that they will always have the say because its their game and I agree with that completely.

I simply have a problem with people on these threads acting as if players don't have good ideas and saying the the community of players are all stupid. You want to attack what I wrote keep replying because my stance hasn't changed in this post or my previous.