Venturebeat Interview with Ion Hazzikostas on WoW's Future

Introducing the World of Warcraft Community Council


Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Greetings, citizens of Azeroth –

The World of Warcraft community is second to none with the passion, love, and excitement you all show to the game. Player feedback impacts all aspects of the game, and with such a wide range of opinions, playstyles, and interests out there, gathering and understanding feedback is more important than ever.

To help further our efforts in this area, we’re introducing the WoW Community Council. This program will add another venue for communication between players and WoW developers. Our goal is to gather more detailed feedback on all aspects of World of Warcraft from players around the world with a wide range of backgrounds and interests.

Here’s how it works:
· Submissions are open to any player interested in taking part in the program.
· Once players are selected, they’ll be given the ability to post in a new discussion forum that is publicly visible to everyone.
o In this new forum, we’ll ask members to share their experiences and perspectives on anything in the game, and some topics may be started by Blizzard developers and community managers.
o Responses and updates from Blizzard will be posted there so they can easily be discussed by the entire community.
· A private discussion will also be setup for Council members to encourage direct interaction between members.
· Separate conversations between smaller groups of members and Blizzard developers will be encouraged to ensure players with differing perspectives are being heard.

These may take the form of live chats between Council members and WoW devs.

One of the key goals with this program is to encourage discussion with players from a wide variety of different playstyles. To help ensure this, part of the application process will involve sharing your areas of interest and expertise. Whether it’s cutting-edge raiding, playing alts, completing achievements, accessibility, or collecting transmog, we want to know your perspective and ensure you’re heard. Therefore, after one year in the program, we plan to unflag Council members and open the application again. All WoW players will be free to apply at that point.

Please note: this program is focused on sharing current and past game experiences; it will not provide access to unannounced game information.

If this sounds like something you’d like to participate in, here is the submission link:

https://forms.office.com/r/2BfVmv2d44

Please share this with any player who may be interested in this program and if you have any questions, please let us know.

Thanks for your time and feedback.

-The World of Warcraft Community Team
This article was originally published in forum thread: Introducing the World of Warcraft Community Council started by Stoy View original post
Comments 245 Comments
  1. Morgaith's Avatar
    + 100 social credit
  1. arkanon's Avatar
    And just like that, the fans swarmed back to Blizzard and all was well. Blizzard returned to form and announced multiple new games, amazing new content for their major IP's, and WoW returned to 10m+ players. /s
  1. Kokolums's Avatar
    But this council idea is a rehash of the exact wrong approach to feedback they followed for years. By ONLY taking player feedback, they narrow the focus of the game to a smaller and smaller subset of players. They SPECIFICALLY need to get feedback from people who loved the game and no longer play, so they can broaden the appeal of the game.

    Its amazing how they KEEP MISSING THE TARGET.
  1. Kiwijello's Avatar
    I'll give you feedback, Devs: Quit being assholes.

    You do NOT know better. If you did, your subs wouldn't be tanking and you wouldn't have had to put your tail between your legs and create this council that probably makes you gag on bile every single time you mention it. Your passionate playerbase is leaving and all you have left to communicate with are "yes" men and shills.
  1. EbaumsTipster's Avatar
    MMOC boomer butthurt in 3.. 2...
  1. C20's Avatar
    Fun fact - The video wasn't even uploaded to the official channel. The channel it's on has ~20 subscribers, and only 1 other video (some arena match from Asia).

    * slow clapping intensifies *
  1. DemonHunter18's Avatar
    What kind of bullshit is now this xd
  1. jazen's Avatar
    not sure Blizz can handle the truth. The players have changed and have much different expectations today than 15 or even 5 years ago. There's no more community, just guilds and individuals.
  1. Orby's Avatar
    I see what they are doing and no doubt there is good intentions but Activision Blizzard fired the community management team 2 years ago and now they are hiring people to do the same job but for free?
  1. exsanguinate's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by DemonHunter18 View Post
    What kind of bullshit is now this xd
    Yes I thought the same.
  1. Lochton's Avatar
    Looks interesting. Do hope the result is going to be better cooperation between the communities and the company.
  1. ExtremelyCrusty's Avatar
    This won't bring back players. Try again.
  1. hulkgor's Avatar
    Lots of games have a community 'council' with a direct line to developers, EVE Online for example, but lots of other examples.

    Does it lead to anything useful? Who knows. Will all feedback be ignored and this is just a publicity stunt? Who knows.

    It's not a bad thing on paper.

    All you vocal haters, might aswell apply and save the game! Now's your chance!

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Orby View Post
    Activision Blizzard fired the community management team 2 years ago and now they are hiring people to do the same job but for free?
    Made me chuckle. Yea man, this is them hiring new community managers to moderate the forums! For free!

    *sigh*
  1. Gadzooks's Avatar
    Encourage discussion? That has never been part of the problem. Ever. It's the devs ignoring it.

    And, a curated forum where questions about certain topics won't show up is hardly a solution to anything going on. This idea, while lame to begin with, is dead with the gatekeeping and curation before it even starts.

    I have a solution to your problems, Team 2:

    LISTEN TO PLAYERS.

    ACT ON IT.

    DON'T BE STUBBORN ASSHOLES OVER THINGS PLAYERS DON'T LIKE.


    I won't even invoice you.
  1. Darknessvamp's Avatar
    The Year is 2030, the Warcraft Community Council and it's carefully selected cabal of five players they allow to discuss the game (and look suspiciously like developer accounts) has finally had it's first change implemented in the game after reeeing for nearly a decade about representation. You can now select your character's pronouns and your only options are zir/zeer. You have been heard players. /s

    Yeah I don't see this going anywhere. If they can't even 'see' the beta and test forums when suggestions or issues are raised then I doubt this will be any different.
  1. Enter Name Here's Avatar
    inb4 only picking members that are already neck deep in koticks whatever
  1. Orby's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by hulkgor View Post
    Lots of games have a community 'council' with a direct line to developers, EVE Online for example, but lots of other examples.

    Does it lead to anything useful? Who knows. Will all feedback be ignored and this is just a publicity stunt? Who knows.

    It's not a bad thing on paper.

    All you vocal haters, might aswell apply and save the game! Now's your chance!

    - - - Updated - - -



    Made me chuckle. Yea man, this is them hiring new community managers to moderate the forums! For free!

    *sigh*
    I asked a question I didn't make a statement... You Blizzard stans are terrible to discuss anything subjective with, you are all so super defensive about the game now. Blizzard really does have a toxic community if people like you are all thats left.
  1. Deadite's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by hulkgor View Post

    All you vocal haters, might aswell apply and save the game! Now's your chance!
    Yeah i'm sure they won't staff it with twitterverse people who exclusively love everything about the game.
  1. GreenJesus's Avatar
    Isn't that what the existing forums are for? So is blizzard going to ignore those forums now? And isn't this basically what "Community Managers" did before they fired all of them? Wasn't that a year ago? Really smart to let everyone forget they existed with a 1 year buffer.
  1. Crixes1's Avatar
    Yay, more ways for blizzard to ignore us. Lol..

Site Navigation