So... live Q&A next Friday, after the backlash of the Survival Guide on Youtube

[Gadzooks]

I doubt this is an emergency Q&A, they have been doing these pre or post big patches for a while. I wouldn't expect much from it. Sounds like Ion and Lore's last chore before heading out for two weeks holiday. They can high five awkwardly after filming it and go talk about how they "nailed it!" over craft beers in an overpriced brewpub in town.

I should get off my butt and make a Q&A bingo card like I've been thinking about forever, his comments and excuses and rambling is pretty predictable.

"We need to do [something] better"
"The team feels"
"The player should feel"
"We'll discuss that"
"Maybe in the next patch"
"Maybe in the next expansion"

But I really can't find the motivation to put any effort into something like that, for a game I don't play.

Edited to add:

This is a nice xmas present for the Youtubers, they get a week of speculation about what Ion will say, and several weeks of ripping apart everything he says, making 3 hour videos picking it all apart. Yes, I'm cynical about it all, and I'm okay with that.

Screw it, I'm gonna go watch Taliesin and Evitel, it's the holidays, and they're the only ones who seem to enjoy their lives.

[Tyron]

Backlash from manchilds disliking a youtube video? The plot thickens :thinking:

[AngerFork]

Just saw the announcement of the live Q&A for the next Friday. I was actually shocked, because Blizzard has been under fire since Blizzcon, and especially since all the backlash and downvotes their english Youtube Survival Guide for 8.1 happened these last days.

I was surprised that Blizzard posted this live Q&A so soon, and i thought "Wow, they are brave enough to place a new announcement and discussion related to the current state of the game after what just happened". I went to the european forum (i can only post there) to comment on that announcement that it was nice of Blizzard to react quickly, and that was brave of them to be opened and listen to the community when i discovered....

... the announcement had the comments disabled. (LOL)

This is really nothing new. They've for the last few Q&A posts turned off commenting and instead redirected it to a forum post. With good reason too...otherwise, the questions just go all over the place and people wind up asking their questions in the wrong area. Not sure why this is really anything noteworthy.

After discovering this, and considering it will be Ion once again that will lead the Q&A, and knowing how the last Q&As went (i haven't forgotten Ion saying that storytelling has its ups and downs, the devs know what they are doing and we should just shut up and wait for the next chapters), this is my prediction on how it will go:

- The questions will be cherrypicked once again.
- Ion will only talk and give further information about all the announcements he told us on Blizzcon.
- He will talk about the release of the raid and details about the raid.
- He will talk about Azerite, class improvements and further tweaks in the future.
- He might talk about Mechagon and Azshara Zone, just like he talked about 8.1 shortly after BfA was released.

Again, not sure why any of this is news. Azerite & Class Improvements are what most people want to know about, even if they didn't cherrypick their questions...when is my class going to be stronger/more fun to play in PvE/PvP? What are you doing to improve player agency with the Azerite system?

As for the cherrypicking, they really kind of don't have any other choice there. The amount of questions asked at these things is pretty high already, and there's a good amount of questions that have already been answered that will certainly come up again.

What i feel he won't tell:
- Talk and have an honest discussion about the dissatisfaction the current wow fanbase is expressing all over the internet, and how Blizzard wants to win their costumers back.
- Announcing a totally new approach to solve the growing frustation and anger of the wow playerbase

At this point, what can they really say? They've obviously noticed the dissatisfaction, how could they not? They are trying to find the right way to talk to the fan base, hence why they tried the Reddit AMA and these Twitch streams, and keep updating the WarcraftDevs twitter account and whatnot.

Additionally, the growing frustration and anger of the player base is kind of all over the place, so how can you really have an honest conversation about it? A lot of the frustration has come out in contradictory ways. Hard to really have an honest conversation when everyone is trying to pull you in their own specific direction.

Also:
- When patch 8.1.5 will be released, and when Kul Tirans and Zandalari Trolls will be released, or even other new allied races (give us those races already Blizz, we are waiting for them for more than a year lol)

So, for me this Q&A is more of a PR stunt rather than trying to communicate and understand the playerbase's long concerns about the current state of the game.

So, what do you guys think?

Why would they announce when 8.1.5 will be released before it even hits the PTR? That makes no sense whatsoever and would only further the argument that Blizz is releasing before things are ready.

[Falynn1]

it's not a Backlash... it's not a response to the silly reaction of the players... it's the planned Q/A after every patch is released. they didn't rush it, they always do this. people are jumping at any little thing to complain about.

[Eleccybubb]

I don't get why some people think that most things Blizz do for the community is "damage control"?

People literally asked for more communication and that's what these Q and A's are.

It's literally just like the Letter from the Producer Live streams for FF14 and nobody tries to say that's damage control. But Blizzard do it and suddenly they are doing damage control.

[micwini]

Ion has to understand that the players want holes, not drills.

[javierdsv]

What are you expecting?

I mean, they can't suddenly change everything about this expansion because well, it was probably planned years ago. They have to keep working with what they have as usual, until their deadlines for the planned content are achieved.

If you think the expansion is bad, you will keep thinking it's bad until it ends. Major features cannot be redesigned during "damage control".

Also, it's not really damage control. If they would really be "desperate" you would have noticed with Legion changes reverted in mass.

They are fine, you are just paranoid.

[Th3Scourge]

I don't get why some people think that most things Blizz do for the community is "damage control"?

People literally asked for more communication and that's what these Q and A's are.

It's literally just like the Letter from the Producer Live streams for FF14 and nobody tries to say that's damage control. But Blizzard do it and suddenly they are doing damage control.

Because we don't really get communication in the form of any useful information. we just get:

Ion: "We understand that Shaman are kinda broken, but they have utility so thats ok"

Lore: "Sounds good. Makes Sense"

- - - Updated - - -

Screw it, I'm gonna go watch Taliesin and Evitel, it's the holidays, and they're the only ones who seem to enjoy their lives.

LOL I'm too cynical to be able to enjoy life the way they enjoy it. Ignorance is bliss I guess

[KOUNTERPARTS]

What backlash ?

Really OP , lol

[RangerDaz]

What are you expecting?

I mean, they can't suddenly change everything about this expansion because well, it was probably planned years ago. They have to keep working with what they have as usual, until their deadlines for the planned content are achieved.

If you think the expansion is bad, you will keep thinking it's bad until it ends. Major features cannot be redesigned during "damage control".

Also, it's not really damage control. If they would really be "desperate" you would have noticed with Legion changes reverted in mass.

They are fine, you are just paranoid.

It is not a question of paranoia, i'm analyzing the reaction of the playerbase to the current state of the game that I have been playing for 14 years (and more.. i play warcraft since warcraft 1).

What backlash ?

Really OP , lol

Have you seen all the wow streamers and youtubers, and the 8.1 survival guide in youtube? many people are talking about about the negative reception.

But i understand many people dont care much about it. But even not caring about it, doesn't mean it didn't exist.

[Zyrinx]

I think you're right. That's what I think.

Now.... they could totally shock us and alter course to an open and honest dialog.... but anyone actually _expecting_ that is really taking some leap of faith at this point.

[Vampyr78]

What backlash from Survival Guide video? I'm sure that pretty much everyone that cares enough to complain knew long before that video what comes in that patch and when. Those videos are aimed to general casual players to inform them what to expect, those people aren't vocal, they just stop playing when they don't like it. People that are vocal and can backlash are those that already pretty much know what comes before this kind of video is released.

Also they held those Q&A sessions close to patch relases since before Legion came out, there's nothing there that screems emergancy. It's kind of natural that there will be questions they would like to address when new patch comes out.

And questions of course are cherrypicked. There are always way too many questions to be answered in an hour. Also there are plenty of question that people don't want an answer, they want Blizzard to say they will change/remove/fix it. Many of this kind of questions have already been answered multiple times and if their posistion on the subject didn't change why would they answer them again?

[Dracullus]

Looks like you want to go back to Chilton era, when there was almost 0 Q&A. And how after amazing 6.1 we waited months without single information about 6.2 (they didn't inform as or anything, they just throw empty Tanaan and raid to PTR).

[ro9ue]

I'm glad they are doing a Q&A, just hoping to hear more overarching philosophies and future plans for the game. If it's just a description of the 8.1 patch, won't be anything worth watching.

[RangerDaz]

This is really nothing new. They've for the last few Q&A posts turned off commenting and instead redirected it to a forum post. With good reason too...otherwise, the questions just go all over the place and people wind up asking their questions in the wrong area. Not sure why this is really anything noteworthy.


Again, not sure why any of this is news. Azerite & Class Improvements are what most people want to know about, even if they didn't cherrypick their questions...when is my class going to be stronger/more fun to play in PvE/PvP? What are you doing to improve player agency with the Azerite system?

As for the cherrypicking, they really kind of don't have any other choice there. The amount of questions asked at these things is pretty high already, and there's a good amount of questions that have already been answered that will certainly come up again.


At this point, what can they really say? They've obviously noticed the dissatisfaction, how could they not? They are trying to find the right way to talk to the fan base, hence why they tried the Reddit AMA and these Twitch streams, and keep updating the WarcraftDevs twitter account and whatnot.

Additionally, the growing frustration and anger of the player base is kind of all over the place, so how can you really have an honest conversation about it? A lot of the frustration has come out in contradictory ways. Hard to really have an honest conversation when everyone is trying to pull you in their own specific direction.


Why would they announce when 8.1.5 will be released before it even hits the PTR? That makes no sense whatsoever and would only further the argument that Blizz is releasing before things are ready.

Well, it is not usual for Blizzard to cut off comments o their announcements. They did it to avoid more chaos, i guess.
And of course, the Q&A won't bring nothing new, that was the point of my post. I wish it did, though

As to the "At this point, what could they really say?", i think Ion is not the best guy for this kind damage control, as i have stated in the first post of this thread. It really depends on the guy that is doing the PR to lead the communication and the damage control with the costumers, and how he does it. Ion's Q&A's unfortunately, are more of the same we already know.

[Dracullus]

I'm glad they are doing a Q&A, just hoping to hear more overarching philosophies and future plans for the game. If it's just a description of the 8.1 patch, won't be anything worth watching.

Despite "it will be all about Allied Races" meme, Ion always respond to important questions. Forums just don't like the answers.

[The Iron Fist]

Think you over thunk the hell out of this post lol

Typical Towelliee response. Blizzard does no wrong in his eyes.

[RangerDaz]

Looks like you want to go back to Chilton era, when there was almost 0 Q&A. And how after amazing 6.1 we waited months without single information about 6.2 (they didn't inform as or anything, they just throw empty Tanaan and raid to PTR).

I didn't criticize the existance of Q&A events.

6.1 was part of Warlords, an expansion that Blizzard clearly abandoned to skip to the next one. I hope for the sake of the franchise that Blizzard won't abandon BfA as well. It has potential, even with all the mistakes that have been done.

[MasterHamster]

There's no point in adressing all the frustrations, because like it or not, we're doing braindead IE's, braindead Warfronts and braindead dungeons throughout all of BFA, while re-unlocking the same goddamn traits over and over on that uninteresting garbage Heart of Azeroth. Expansions are like container-ships, it takes too much time to change course.


And then in the next expansion;
"Fuck it, we're removing gear progression alltogether. It doesn't serve any purpose anymore."

[Archmage Alodi]

They are preparing themselves to apologise for the issues we're going to face when the patch goes live.