So i got a response from J Allen Brack (which I wasn't expecting)

[aceperson]

Yeah, can't really blame Brack for the response he made. I was actually surprised he was as honest as he was when it comes to youtubers, since they tend to work together with Blizz in certain respects. Though, that whole "Bellular is a dev too!" kind of made me cringe. I've worked on games in my personal time, none ever to completion, does that mean my opinion should now be listened to by a studio like Blizz?

yes. as long as you give constructive, well-mannered feedback. even you should be listened too. the point of ion giving feedback and being hired for it rings true to this statement as he had no dev experience at the time.

[Raisei]

Sorry, you're living in another world, go back to page 1 of this thread, put in a CTRL F for Bellular and look at the comments, its not, oh bellular thinks this but I dont agree, or, Oh bellular makes this claim as a dev but I dont really think hes got that much authority, its just complete lack of respect and undermining because you know what, people HATE when others have authority when stating an opinion, they hate it!!!!

The entire point is that Bellular has no authority, because he is in essence just another salty WoW player. Only difference is that he managed to turn his salt into money and even that only happened because people in this playerbase are so desperate to get bad news and have their negativity reflected back at them that Bellular became their icon.
And yes, there is a lack of respect on my part. Respect is earned and I have seen nothing from him that would earn him my respect.

Im sorry, WoW is significantly less polished and finished than most other AAA games, most, not all.

That is not even remotely true. Many many other AAA titles have much bigger problems. WoWs biggest problem is that it tries to satisfy everyone, especially the loud minority that will never be satisfied anyway.

Again, no, I watch all the WoW media, read wowhead and this website, and I digest whats happening to the game in my own way and own perspective that isnt remotely the same as others who havent worked at a studio.

And after digesting all this information and having your "unique" prespective you happen to arrive at exactly the same conclusion that thousands of others have before and after watching Bellular. Curious. Do you think they all work for a studio too?

Yeah I appreciate that, and thats fine, ill never publically disclose it either, im sure you'll forgive me for not wanting some of the people here to know exactly who I am and being able to target who I am or what im doing. Anonymity is a great thing. But that dosent mean that when I read absolute horseshit about entertainment or development that I wont step in and say hey, I happen to be a dev, this is how it is, if they wanna get all salty and upset Im claiming authority, they can ignore me, thats fine, but im not going to stop.

Sure, that is fine. Just don't expect anyone to believe you and respect your authority. The beauty of the internet is that anyone can claim everything and thus no one is entitled to authority just because of those claims. We can and will only judge you by your words not your alleged authority. It's just that simple.

Well sorry, that dosent mean we cant use educated guesses and information from around the web, to build up a realistic picture of the situation. If we want to live in a world like that, we might aswell close down this forum, you cant have an opinion anymore is what you're saying?

You can make educated guesses, but they are just that, guesses. The information you need to make a factual claim is not avaiable on the net and you can't base an argument on guesswork. Having an opinion is fine, claiming this opinion is "true" because of data you don't have, is not.

[aceperson]

It's a continous decline that's been happening for the past 3-4 years, something like "waiting for the new expac" doesn't explain it.
HotS has been in maintenance mode for almost three years by now, at a certain point, that's just not going to have any massive impact anymore.

Naturally this isn't solely down to WoW, but seeing such a steep decline and assuming that their biggest franchise is unaffected is just wishful thinking.

As a reminder back in Q 2018, Blizzard had 38MAU, from there, they lost 1-2M MAU's every quarter.

exactly. by no means am i saying wow is responsible for all or the majority of the losses. but it can't be denied that losing 30% of your overall consumer base isn't a good thing.

[Tronski]

Are you really surprised that he responded to your pet issues and assumptions with the obvious responses that the community never wants to hear but needs to accept?

Spoiler alert: The game isn't losing subs because it's getting worse or because they're not listening to the community -- it's losing subs because it's over 15 years old and the hardcore install base has grown up and has either burnt out or no longer has the time to play it and the market simply isn't there to continue sustaining those kinds of numbers. 15+ year old games don't maintain subscriber numbers, period. The fact that WoW is still the king of MMOs is a testament to how well-designed and popular it is.

I'm not trying to be a dick here, but you're way off base on your assumptions.

Why do you think Classic dragged millions of players back?

WoW has become completely unrecognisable from the original game, graphics excluded. We can argue until we get blue about whether new WoW is good or bad, but it's undisputable that the model of the later years burns out anyone but the most zealous within a single major patch. With the increasing demand for gear, WoW has also become increasingly toxic, on top of increasing "difficulty"(that you bypass with gear), failure is now outright punished, I.e. downgraded keys. Fall behind on weekly progress and you are permanently behind.

Old WoW? Gear almost didn't matter. Some BiS gear could come from anywhere, including 5m dungeons and earlier raid tiers. In WoW classic you barely need gear at all. It's chill and stress-free.

You say the game isn't getting worse, but objectively it is. It is now a mobile game designed to hook and make addicts of the vulnerable to ensure monthly subs. FOMO is the main reason people log in daily, until they are burned out and give up.
It wasn't like that before.

[Raven]

well, to all my knowledge it is legitimate. it's entirely possibly someone other than brack answered but this is bracks business email and i did get a response.

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i'm not so sure ion is the problem is brack is actually like this. i've been dissatisfied with ion and the management at blizz for a while but if brack is this tone deaf as well, it may be brack calling the shots and not ion.

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you would need to help me figure out how to do that. i don't even know what an eml is.

Ohh come on, so now the problem is Brack, i would say its time for you to stop trying to find people to blame and just move on to something else then Wow.

[aceperson]

Bellular, Asmongold, Preach and the like aren't necessarily 3 people who reflect the views of the player base.... Most of their fans don't even play WOW and yet those same fans will still have negative views on parts of the game that they've never actually experienced first hand. Asmongold recently did a survey where only about 20% of his viewers played WOW.

i would want evidence that most of their bases don't play. otherwise, that's just hyperbole. as for those who don't, i'd wager that most of those who don't did at one point and that probably influences why they still have a grudge or some kind of dislike of wow.

[bloodykiller86]

this is a fair point but i honestly wouldn't know who to talk to about this kind of thing.

then at least learn how to write then because your email was just as bad as most of these hate threads on mmo-champion/WoW forums. im surpised you even got a response to it. you literally started it with the stereotypical "No offense but (insert insult)" that is not how you write an email to a President of a company

[aceperson]

Proper feedback about the game should be about the game and what the problems are. Agitating for people to be fired is always and forever doing it wrong.

well then we're good because i didn't ask for ion to get fired.

[TheFirstOnes]

Real or not, the comments here are funny to read.

[aceperson]

"not impressed by his replies"

What does that even mean? His replies seems to the point and are correct, at least when it comes to my own development experience as well as just casual interest in watching how games are developed. Players always think "just do this, just do that". When it comes to games it's hardly ever "just do this".

What replies did you want?
"Yes, we gonna demote Ion, thank you!"

I don't understand the term not impressed by his replies... that just gives warning bells that the one asking the question want a specific answer. If so, why even ask the question when you've already made up your mind on which answer is correct or what you wanted to hear?

i was expecting a no in all honesty. it's the sheer lack of information such as bellular not being a dev and saying preach only tries to spark hate for wow that made me not impressed. i wasn't expecting a response at all like the title says.

[TheFirstOnes]

Ohh come on, so now the problem is Brack, i would say its time for you to stop trying to find people to blame and just move on to something else then Wow.

Or...

People can still play yet point out the obvious flaws of the game?

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i was expecting a no in all honesty. it's the sheer lack of information such as bellular not being a dev and saying preach only tries to spark hate for wow that made me not impressed. i wasn't expecting a response at all like the title says.

My biggest question is if this is real, or fabricated. I'm down to assume it's real, but I don't know. If it is fabricated, the person at least got Brack's BS corporate text to speech lines down.

[Big Thanks]

i was expecting a no in all honesty. it's the sheer lack of information such as bellular not being a dev and saying preach only tries to spark hate for wow that made me not impressed. i wasn't expecting a response at all like the title says.

At most Bellular is a dev without ANY experience on his belt.

Did he realease something?
No

Did he hear to feedback from playerbase?
No because he released nothing

Did he do anything in response to player feedback?
No...cause he has no game

[aceperson]

I wish I had the confidence of OP, to post something as garbage as this to a wide audience, and expect them to praise me for it.

He responded to you about the way he should have. Especially given the ones you cited as being some apparent source of great credibility. He's right in that all 3 of them do (almost) nothing but incite their audience to try and hate on WoW. Those aren't the kinds of people you listen to, or whose feedback you should particularly care about, when looking to make big changes to your game.

i didn't expect praise at all. honestly, i'm surprised the comments have been as positive as they have been. i expected this thread to either just die or not get anyone that's reasonable and willing to think critically. i just don't care about the opinions of people who will discount my opinion simply because my actions don't line up with their sense of right and wrong.

[Lolites]

there was an article recently about blizzard and monthly active users of blizzard games. so not sub numbers. that means it covers the entirety of blizzard games, not just wow.

which in a jist means we have no clue about SL at all, bcs SL can be still higher than it was, just other games fell lower...

[Nightstalker]

Would you have shared this email if it didn't contain phrases denouncing 3 popular influencers?
Is this yet another attempt to start drama and get nothing productive done in the process?

[aceperson]

Ion lead Legion dev, let’s not forget that. One of the best expansions on par with WoTLK even tho I actually like it more than WoTLK.

lets keep in mind that ion inherented that expansion after it had released. so ion wasn't really responsible for designing it. he really just led it through the 7.x patches which would have been planned out and been in the design process by then. please keep in mind expansions get developed years in advance.

[Djuntas]

you got any images that arent granular or blurry, like fuck me i need a magnifying glass to make out half the shit you posted. @aceperson

ctrl + scroll wheel to zoom in on pages.

[Raisei]

You don't need to be a master chef to know when your food tastes like shit.

Interesting comparison. "Taste" is indeed very subjective, what tastes well for one might not for the next.

So considering the guy that has hated the food for the last 5 years and made money off of hating it as an authority in the subject of food might be a bad idea. Maybe the food is fine and he just hates it because it pays the bills?

Food for thought (pun fully intended)

[aceperson]

Allan Brack is watching this thread.

probably not. i don't imagine he cares.

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How cringe to spam an exec with what ultimately boils down to "my favorite twitch streamers think you're dumb" or "fire x person"

Discuss the systems and solutions, not the people.

Americans just cant wait to cancel people xD

first, i didn't try to cancel. i asked for a demotion to what he was good at. that isn't cancelling. second, we've tried talking systems and solutions with ion and he hasn't listened. that's why i started emailing these people.

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Is this a joke? In what world do you think you have the right to email Blizzard and ask for someone to be demoted from their job because of a system you don’t like.
How dare you email Blizzard and talk about someone individually and act as if you know them, know how they work, and have any real insight into anything that happens within Blizzard’s offices.
Just because Ion is the guy who speaks to the community, does not mean he is the one person who makes all decisions.

You need to step away from your computer and just reflect on what you are doing.

Also before you go, can you please leave us your boss’ email address (assuming you have one). I would like to email them and discuss how you handle yourself in your spare time, and perhaps use it as evidence to get you ‘demoted’.

Thanks,

it's not over one system. if i was that petty, i would've done this long ago back in legion. almost the entire game is bad at this point. that's why i did it.

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What I find funny is that people like you think the game should be exactly like the players want it to be.

i actually don't. i agree with asmongold on the idea that devs are suppose to listen to player feedback and ideas to determine the true issue and a real solution. the players can easily tell when a problem will happen. they aren't the best at fixing them though.

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Isn't the MOBA dead and buried?

it's still alive. it actually got a new hero some months back. but it's not exactly a big deal anymore and i kind of expect the hots team to be disbanded soon.

[aceperson]

Legion says Hi
I was - among many - like u saying same thing during WoD, maybe we are burned and it isn't game fault, then legion came and renewed wow love for many of us
So no, it isn't a 15+ years old game, LoL is most played game and it is now 10+ years old, wow changed massively from its start, retail wow is massively different from classic wow and can log and check that urself
So no, if they make wow good a lot will play again like what happened in Legion, if they make it shit a lot will leave like BFA/WoD
SL is ok exp, but it has poor to no update (like WoD) so ppl will leave, and in mmo it is hard to return once u leave mid-exp, mostly u'll wait for next exp, blizz made us think that way with how they treated WoD (one of strongest start, then puff)

exactly. well said.