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. Exkrementor's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by EbaumsTipster View Post
    The WoW forums have proved themselves worthy of ignoring. They are dogshit and even worse than MMOC and Wowhead combined, really stupid fuckers on there.
    Totally. If you wanna have a laugh go to the european forums in other languages. There are people there who are too stupid to learn english and still want to complain. They think these forums are a direct line to the Blizzard devs. As if the WoW devs translate some badly written german or french post about how getting that one mount takes way too much effort because they have a real life or something.
  1. Enter Name Here's Avatar
    or is just the fabled hidden forum made public?
  1. Nzx's Avatar
    Cool idea. This same style of communication (albeit in a slightly different form) led to the oft-touted success of MoP class design, for example. Of course, the usual suspects are all here bitching about literally anything Blizzard try, so it is what it is. I suspect this will lead to some pretty good outcomes overall, but as always it won't be enough for the vocal minority of weirdos who each think they're the Roger Ebert of the video gaming world.
  1. Log Cabin's Avatar
    I kind of question just what it is they are aiming for with this to be honest... They are looking for people who make streams, guides, and websites. and video makers.

    I think they want popular people over knowledgeable people while still somehow getting people who agree with them?

    Feels like they are trying to recruit preach from four years ago.
  1. Kralljin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Saltysquidoon View Post
    Why is blizzard the only company on earth that has such a consistently hard time parsing feedback? Even when other devs actively choose to ignore feedback it's because they believe their path is better (insert 300 years meme).
    It's a mixture of having gutted their CM staff and the devs not valueing feedback.

    Blizzard is not a company that has valued feedback,ever, GC may be an exception, but there it was mostly just having a discussion with the community.
  1. saeadeb's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Deadite View Post
    Yeah i'm sure they won't staff it with twitterverse people who exclusively love everything about the game.
    Yeah if you shit talk the game on your wow character/forum you'd be brain dead to think they'd pick you.
  1. GR8GODZILLAGOD's Avatar
    You mean like the PTR and Alpha/Beta forums that they already ignore?
  1. Hellobolis's Avatar
    didn't they already have some private direct line to the devs forum for high quality posters that they eventually just stopped reading/replying on a year or two ago?
  1. Locruid's Avatar
    LOL

    A council to address issues?

    Hmmm, pretty sure the biggest issue for YEARS has been death while stunned in PVP AND HUGE PVP imbalance that we've asked for balancing for pretty much going on 2 decades soon.

    So why is a "Council" suddenly going to change this?
  1. Tojara's Avatar
    Out of morbid curiosity I actually went through the application to see what they asked, only to guffaw a bit when I read the very last part of it.

    Submit three links to WoW related content you've contributed to the community over the years; Streams, websites, youtube, guides, etc.

    While I won't sit here and shit on everybody who actively does those things, it's clear, at least how this application is framed that you pretty much have to do some of these things in order to get in. Now, some of the people who make content for WoW are actually fairly insightful at times and/or give good feedback, but are they some divine beings with the means to fix the game better than most run of the mill players? No, not really and most of you on this forum do yourself a decent disservice if you think a streamer or youtuber who plays WoW more than you do has a better handle on how the game should be run.

    If theory crafters and class discords had their way, the game wouldn't really be all that fun, despite outcries to just "BALANCE THE GAME BLIZZZARD" . We would more often than not be stuck with a shit load of ability bloat, or unfun ways to play the game all in the name of the "meta" and as many of you know, what people do at the top (regardless of whether it matters at the bottom or not when you don't really care about output) does shift it's way through the community. Perhaps (and this is a big maybe) the game might be more numerically balanced, but rarely does that equate to a game actually being overall fun. Not saying it shouldn't be balanced better, but you get the picture.

    As another reference point just go to any prominent streamer (whether it's a youtube content creator, or a twitch streamer) and look at how much they gushed over Torghast when it was released originally. This was the infinite version of Torghast with barely any abilities in, yet, it was seen as a massive success during those few weeks that they did content about it. Fast forward months later and opinion has flipped upside down despite barely changing, with all of these people doubling back on their opinions and not really having the know at all to recognize some of the problems that presented itself when first revealed. Essentially, most of their opinions are sort of drivel, and they get stuck in the allure of new = fun, only to shit on things later without really giving feedback that's any bit more constructive than you see on forums like this.

    Again, I'm not talking about all of the content creators out there. Some of them are rather insightful and give proper feedback, but don't think that the majority of them form the opinions they have based on some revolutionary soul search that they themselves have done. Lots of it's just ripped from other content creators or actual opinion pieces on pretty much any forum and presented as their own.

    Basically it's sort of sad if the barrier to entry is creating content for WoW. Should some of these people be heavily considered? Yeah, of course. But if you just took exclusively hardcore people you then get people who will unironically tell you that you're retarded if you can't field half a dozen warlocks or something equally as dumb to progress new raid content.

    The pessimism aside I hope they actually do start listening to people, because there are clearly some very good ideas out there that can absolutely better the game. Realistically speaking Blizzard should look inward and realize aspects of expansions gone by that actually worked, all the while actually producing more content. I doubt people would be up in arms as much about the state of the game if the last 6 years had more content releases and innovation beyond repeating the same core systems/ideas we had in Legion.
  1. Wyattbw09's Avatar
    Color me skeptical. That said, I'll give it a chance. If it turns out the questions are just modification of My question is You guys are the best. How hard did you have to work to become this awesome? Replace you guys with zone, game, mechanic, whatever.
  1. C20's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Gadzooks View Post
    Team 2 has this bizarre habit of never directly engaging with their customers. Which is why "solutions" like this council are needed in the first place. It's like a clown world cycle of failure. It's just another layer between the devs in their ivory towers...er, sorry, their "dojo", and the players. It's horseshit.

    The Players: "The devs don't listen to us. We talk until we're blue in the face, and nothing changes. We talk on the WoW Forums, the WoW Reddit, on YouTube, on MMO-Champions, and it's like they don't even know we exist, and Ion keeps telling us we just don't get it. The only way to get their attention is to throw larger and larger temper tantrums, or stop paying. And even then, they react to us with disdain."

    The Devs: "Let's make a curated forum that locks out everyone but people we approve of, and only allow posts we approve of, and we'll tell players there they just don't get it. What's that? Players who unsubbed? /spit."
    Absolutely this. It's not a new thing either, and they absolutely can not make up for all the years they seem to have ignored the players, not with a move like this. Here's how I'd summarise the expansions since Wrath/Cataclysm.

    We ended Wrath, and went to Cataclysm which was poorly received due to the lack of depth given to it. Northrend - the Lich King is constantly present, not only in person but in almost everything we experience in Northrend. Deathwing? Yeah, sometimes he'll fly overhead and randomly kill you, but he's not even trying to engage with the destruction he caused.

    So, we move onto Pandaria, and we're fighting alongside a species which originally existed as a cross between a joke and fandom? Uhhh... alright. Surely we're gonna be fighting some awesome ancient enemies? Wait... mantid? Like, the mantid from AQ? Oh, nope, not even close. What about other enemies? Wait a sec... hold up... we're fighting manifestations of emotions? (Joking aside, I liked Pandaria as a continent, and for some of it's overall flow, but the entire expansion was all over the place and somehow we ended up with Garrosh).

    So, how about we try something new? All that progress you made building a garrison in another timeline that's somehow based in a historic time? Yeah, forget that. It's in a place in history, and you can visit it at any point, but it's not actually visible in the current time, but it's also just an auto-battler with more faffing about. We told you that we want substance instead of gimmicks. Instead, you delivered NPC's that actually walk around us, instead of through us. This is groundbreaking and will absolutely fix the game. Alright, next time, we'll do better.

    Artifacts were fun, but oh boy you're gonna lose all these interesting abilities, and we, the devs, refuse to listen to what the community want. The rest of the expansion is good though, right? See, the community agree that although it wasn't perfect, it had enough substance and fun. What do you mean the legendary system is annoying to deal with? What sort of Warrior wouldn't want something that's as useful as a belt with spirit on it? Go grind more currency, scrub.

    Maybe we should do something similar in the next expansion but make it somehow less appealing, more grindy, but critical to progressing both the story and any slightly competitive aspect of the game. Good news though, it's time limited too and it fits into your neck slot! You won't be able to complete the main aspects of this expansion without relying on it.

    Alright, this time guys, we won't make the same mistake. Let's introduce conduits, but let's make it frustrating to change your choices frequently. Let's have a bunch of abilities that don't work as intended, and others that work too well. What do you mean you told us this system needed changing in beta? We didn't read anything of the sort. Maybe you should have posted it from the Cosby lounge - we might see it then. You like the autobattler though, right? We're both in agreement that the different things you can spend your anima on are fun? Well, I guess then you could say we were successful.
  1. CaptainV's Avatar
    Legit this community council thing is cringe, honestly.

    But again, being tone deaf is par for the course of blizzards current model.

    Blizzard: Divercity and all that wonderful stuff.

    Also Blizzard: Buy the cat mount we coulda added for free.
  1. Wyattbw09's Avatar
    Basically it's sort of sad if the barrier to entry is creating content for WoW.
    Na, the barrier is that you needed to be someone who is currently or in your recent history craved Blizzard approval or attention by being a content creator. This vastly increases the likelihood that you are going talk about soft ball stuff in the hopes that Blizzard will continue to give your content attention by being super positive.
  1. Selah's Avatar
    Ho boy... this is going to be... interesting....
  1. Musta's Avatar
    Blizzard: Announces CC
    Players: "You must be truly desperate to come to me for help"
  1. Gadzooks's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Tojara View Post
    Out of morbid curiosity I actually went through the application to see what they asked, only to guffaw a bit when I read the very last part of it.

    Submit three links to WoW related content you've contributed to the community over the years; Streams, websites, youtube, guides, etc.
    Yeah, that's what I suspected. This is dead before it even starts, it's just the same secret influencer channel, just read-only for most people. You know, the people who make up most of the customer base.

    Fucking clown shoes, Blizzard. 100%, unadulterated clown shoes.
  1. Darkeon's Avatar
    Well, next time an expansion is shit you guys won't be able to say "Blizzard isn't listening to us", it will have to be "Well, the Community Council must not be relaying the information well enough".
  1. Lahis's Avatar


    Welp. That kinda proves they're just looking for new influencers to groom into their yesmen and positive PR guys.
  1. Baleful's Avatar
    Oh look a forum so they can ignore player feedback and repeat the same mistake every expansion just to say "we are sorry, you were right" one year after. "Trust us not having all legendaries available is fun!" "trust us, ap beign spec-based instead of character based won't be a problem if you play offspecs" "Trust us, not beign able to loot azerites from M+ will be fine" "Trust us, not beign able to reroll covenants and timegating conduits is totally fine". You had PLENTY of oportunities and feedback to solve all this things but you where stuborn enough to think a group of Blizzard employees will know what's fun and what not than hundreds of people saying it's a terrible idea. No way you're not making the same mistake again in expansion 10.

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