Communication Gone Sour

[Deleted]

Blizz is not confident with the game right now, so they probably rather not talk about it.

[PIsForPhuck]

Blizz is not confident with the game right now, so they probably rather not talk about it.

Maybe it's just that they're like teenagers with their new-found toy (twitter). Kind of like how facebook used to be a thing for college students and teens, then the parents took it over and now it's not cool anymore. Blizzard are the parents discovering their kids' toy, and twitter is the new facebook.

[Jessicka]

Maybe it's just that they're like teenagers with their new-found toy (twitter). Kind of like how facebook used to be a thing for college students and teens, then the parents took it over and now it's not cool anymore. Blizzard are the parents discovering their kids' toy, and twitter is the new facebook.

Few years till they discover Snapchat and Instagram then, I heard that's what the cool kids use these days, right?

[Incredibale]

Blizzard got their asses burned when the hub change was revealed by Mumper on Twitter. Instead of admitting they lied their asses off after their pathetic excuses and disingenuous behavior, they decided to withdraw almost altogether. They are too proud to shape up.

[PIsForPhuck]

Few years till they discover Snapchat and Instagram then, I heard that's what the cool kids use these days, right?

Nah, those are too picture-focused. Twitter is perfect for them because you can just use the excuse of having a character limit and therefore don't have to say anything worthwhile because it "won't fit". It's not like they have official forums or anything...

- - - Updated - - -

Blizzard got their asses burned when the hub change was revealed by Mumper on Twitter. Instead of admitting they lied their asses off after their pathetic excuses and disingenuous behavior, they decided to withdraw almost altogether. They are too proud to shape up.

They probably had a panicked board room meeting after that and now they aren't allowed to mention much of anything on twitter. Lmao.

[Jessicka]

Nah, those are too picture-focused. Twitter is perfect for them because you can just use the excuse of having a character limit and therefore don't have to say anything worthwhile because it "won't fit". It's not like they have official forums or anything...

You mean the Twitter integration they just added wasn't for linking screenshots?

[PIsForPhuck]

You mean the Twitter integration they just added wasn't for linking screenshots?

That time, yeah. I mean before the integration when they were tweeting everything all the time.

[Srg56]

Edit: I left out the question that spurred me to originally write this post: Do you feel more or less listened to as a player since the Devs moved to Twitter and since they recently toned it down?

I don't use twitter so it doesn't really affect me. If i want to give feedback, the forums are a few keystrokes away, on top of being a vastly superior means to convey my thoughts when compared to 140 characters. I think it's better that PR people handle the social media stuff and the devs handle the game stuff. Plus, you can't blame them. Have you seen the insane way their words get interpreted? It's like watching a telephone game being played out but over social media.

For example i read on mmo-c that some dev is totally disrespectful and downright insulting to players over twitter, and naturally i'm curious about what exactly was said so i go and search for the allegedly insulting tweets and am really disappointed at the ridiculous interpretation or exaggeration of nuance to the point that it's downright hyperbolic in it's nature. Some people really have nothing better to do, and that's sad.

[Shahad]

As a beta tester for several class communities, I felt that my feedback was mostly ignored. Worse still, there was no effort on the part of the devs to explain their view point whatsoever. This made the experience seem very much like talking to a brick wall. Which, in the context of a beta test, is stupendously stupid. And the results speak for themselves, as we now have some of the worst class design in recent history.

[IxilaFA]

The last thing you want is to have important info revealed on one obscure Twitter account, which the average player has no connection to. Is it a good experience to have the situation of "when did my spec ability change? it is totally different" "oh, that was announced by DevSmackface on Twitter back on October 20th." No, not really. Heck, WoW has always had communication problems, in that a player was not getting enough news about downtime or upcoming changes in the Client or the Launcher (which is something ALL players will see). They have tried to rein that in, thankfully.

I just want to point out that, even when all the WoW devs were using their own twitters to talk about changes, all of the changes were also posted on the official sites and the launcher whenever they went live. If you missed a hotfix post that changed one of your abilities, it's pretty much your fault cause beyond that the only thing Blizzard can do is put a big pop-up when you log in that says "Hey, your stuff changed!" And how annoying would that be?


As for the decision to roll it back to one account and leave an almost deafening silence on the wake, not surprised one bit. Somebody on here posted, disgusted, by Holinka's response on Christmas calling some people trolls and thanking others for not being trolls. Once that stage was reached I got the impression that Blizzard was going to stop with the frequent responses on their personal Twitter. Also the whole stuff over the summer about the Karabor change where people lambasted them for supposedly going back on a "promise." I mean, honestly, this is what the community has been pushing them towards for awhile now. You can't make blatant hateful remarks towards Blizzard devs and pitch a fit everytime one of their ideas change, and then get mad when they decide to not make those types of posts anymore.

For us rational folks who can make that distinction, however, it does suck to get less info now.

[Fang7986]

Look at how much shit the community gives them over every single thing they say. Can you blame them for rolling it back ?

no. This is the answer right here. People over-react to every little thing that gets posted without seeing any of the context surrounding it and just cause more problems. Look at the mess there was about the datamined info about the Hogs pet the other day when people went ballistic about it maybe being a retroactive reward based on old out-of-date info. People can't tell what is actual news or info and just believe every little thing they hear second-hand as gospel truth.

- - - Updated - - -

As a beta tester for several class communities, I felt that my feedback was mostly ignored. Worse still, there was no effort on the part of the devs to explain their view point whatsoever. This made the experience seem very much like talking to a brick wall. Which, in the context of a beta test, is stupendously stupid. And the results speak for themselves, as we now have some of the worst class design in recent history.

Well considering everytime Blizz does give feedback or their point of view people bitch about it and how wrong they are and how they are ruining this class or that and completely ignore that the game as a whole is probably the best it has ever been for the majority of players. Don't complain about talking to a brick wall when you act like a brick wall yourself.

[Mirishka]

Look at how much shit the community gives them over every single thing they say. Can you blame them for rolling it back ?

Pretty much. After years of personal attacks, childish rants, threats, wishes of 'get cancer/aids/etc and die'... I'm surprised they bother communicating with us at all.

- - - Updated - - -

As a beta tester for several class communities, I felt that my feedback was mostly ignored. Worse still, there was no effort on the part of the devs to explain their view point whatsoever. This made the experience seem very much like talking to a brick wall. Which, in the context of a beta test, is stupendously stupid. And the results speak for themselves, as we now have some of the worst class design in recent history.

Except beta tester doesn't mean 'volunteer class designer'. They'll take feedback into account (they have made many changes based on stuff we've said) but ultimately they're the ones designing the game. As often as people seem to forget, WoW is theirs. Not ours.

[Wildberry]

Well considering everytime Blizz does give feedback or their point of view people bitch about it and how wrong they are and how they are ruining this class or that and completely ignore that the game as a whole is probably the best it has ever been for the majority of players. Don't complain about talking to a brick wall when you act like a brick wall yourself.

Do you realize how childish and immature your response is?

Shahad essentially brought up a fairly common complaint amongst beta testers, that being, they felt their feedback on class design was ignored in favor of the "Blizzard knows best" approach. Which is 100% Accurate.

Then you come along, and try to justify it. You say it's okay that Blizzard ignores feedback because every time they give a response, or their point of view, they're told they're wrong.

I hate to break it to you, but in some cases, they are. Class design for this expansion is one of those scenarios.

I understand that your argument is hinged solely upon plastering a vocal minority as the face of all complaints and criticisms, but that's horribly dishonest, especially when a large amount of beta feedback (Especially from notable players) was constructive.

You've essentially asserted that if one complains about Blizzard, or questions their decisions, they're actually the problem. That's not the case, buddy.

Oh, and by the way, what metric are you using to judge the quality of the game for most players at the moment? I'm not going to lie, that seems completely unsupported, almost as if you pulled it out of your ass. Especially when taking into consideration polling data pointing to widespread discontent with WoD (Amongst various WoW communities.

P.S. You probably shouldn't accuse others of being a "Brick wall," when you yourself are one. You've spewed nothing but conjecture, anecdotes, and easily deconstructable, unsupported arguments, and framed your post in such a way that no matter how Shahad (or others) voice their complaints, they're "wrong." That's real honest!

[MoanaLisa]

Especially when taking into consideration polling data pointing to widespread discontent with WoD (Amongst various WoW communities.

Forum polls and communities are one thing. Ten million players and their collective thoughts may well be something entirely different. I'm not really inclined to think that much of anything that shows up here or on the Blizz forums is representative of players in the larger sense. We really have no idea how much discontent there is or how deep it runs. In comparison to the whole, forums, fan sites and blogs are a very small and unrepresentative sample.

[Deleted]

Forum polls and communities are one thing. Ten million players and their collective thoughts may well be something entirely different. I'm not really inclined to think that much of anything that shows up here or on the Blizz forums is representative of players in the larger sense. We really have no idea how much discontent there is or how deep it runs. In comparison to the whole, forums, fan sites and blogs are a very small and unrepresentative sample.

Why are they unrepresentative?

[Wildberry]

Forum polls and communities are one thing. Ten million players and their collective thoughts may well be something entirely different. I'm not really inclined to think that much of anything that shows up here or on the Blizz forums is representative of players in the larger sense. We really have no idea how much discontent there is or how deep it runs. In comparison to the whole, forums, fan sites and blogs are a very small and unrepresentative sample.

It's true that Forum polls and the general consensus of online communities don't give the entire picture, they remain a useful metric, and it seems as if you're not giving them enough credit.

They don't show the entire picture, no. However, a small poll with enough player variety (Which I do believe applies to MMO-C, at least), can give a representative view of a much larger portion of the community, and how they feel.

There's also the fact that in regards to the "game as a whole is probably the best it has ever been for the majority of players," which was Fang's original assertion, we've yet to see... really anything to back that up.

So really it comes down to: Imperfect, limited data vs. No data.

[Conscious]

As a beta tester for several class communities, I felt that my feedback was mostly ignored. Worse still, there was no effort on the part of the devs to explain their view point whatsoever. This made the experience seem very much like talking to a brick wall. Which, in the context of a beta test, is stupendously stupid. And the results speak for themselves, as we now have some of the worst class design in recent history.

More to the point, they've started shutting off communication across the spectrum.

It's been only the glaring problems, that get a lot of views no less, that warrant a blue post or dialogue. Even then, you're lucky if it's relevant and not trolling.

I do believe that they're intentionally removing themselves from the spot light because the design and development direction has already been set in stone and is rolling. Cruise control is on for this expansion, that's for sure.

[IxilaFA]

Why are they unrepresentative?

Because only a certain type of player comes to the WoW forums and actively posts and gets involved in polls. Someone who is legitimately enjoying the game will probably not respond to a poll that says "What do you think of WoD?" But someone who doesn't like it and wants to get that opinion damn sure will.

There's a saying in the marketing world that a person will remember a negative thing about a company for 23 years while they'll only remember the positive things for a month. Something like that, can't remember the exact verbage. Either way, there are many, many people who are willing to browse the forums and post just to make sure their negative opinions are heard.

[Conscious]

Forum polls and communities are one thing. Ten million players and their collective thoughts may well be something entirely different. I'm not really inclined to think that much of anything that shows up here or on the Blizz forums is representative of players in the larger sense. We really have no idea how much discontent there is or how deep it runs. In comparison to the whole, forums, fan sites and blogs are a very small and unrepresentative sample.

Oh come now, we've seen polls here held in credible regard, even those on the front page. When you're talking sampling, and more or less accuracy, you can do wonders with a fraction of that population. See here.

So in that case, for a population of 1 Million, 99% confidence level and with a 5% margin of error, you'd only need 663 people.

x10 for the current estimated population of WoW, and 6630 people responding to a poll will net you fantastic insight into the data.

- - - Updated - - -

Because only a certain type of player comes to the WoW forums and actively posts and gets involved in polls. Someone who is legitimately enjoying the game will probably not respond to a poll that says "What do you think of WoD?" But someone who doesn't like it and wants to get that opinion damn sure will.

There's a saying in the marketing world that a person will remember a negative thing about a company for 23 years while they'll only remember the positive things for a month. Something like that, can't remember the exact verbage. Either way, there are many, many people who are willing to browse the forums and post just to make sure their negative opinions are heard.

Why wouldn't they respond to the poll, saying they like it? Not much confidence in your population.

Again, see above.

[IxilaFA]

So really it comes down to: Imperfect, limited data vs. No data.

Except you're forgetting the other category: perfect, survey-driven data. Something that Blizzard has and we do not. They have access to every single thing that is done on their servers. They have access to every single form filled out when somebody unsubscribes. They have access to information from every single call they've received through the support lines, every ticket that has ever been generated, and every conversation a developer has ever had with a fan. They have access to tons of metrics that we could never even hope to compile with our limited views of the forums.

Basically what it comes down to, if the company that runs a game with two hundred servers and ten million players tells me that a certain number of players are asking for a certain feature, I'm inclined to believe them and not the random person on MMO-C who has been unsubscribed for a year.