So is the Wow community council dead?

[chiddie]

I think that the major issue is Blizzard being in need (or pretending to be in need) of a Council to better understand what’s wrong in his 17 years old game.

If it’s still not clear after all this time that solo players need a proper progression path not based on WQ/daily and with an ilvl cap they will reach in one month, the game is really beyond salvation.

I agree on one thing, though: it is time to choose for real if they want to stick with grouped content only or not and stop throwing baits here and there to solo players. If it has to be a mmorpg (and it should), it’s time to fully embrace that direction by making loud and clear that solo players are not welcomed anymore.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

If their motive is to have a platform where everyone already agrees with them, no discussion would happen on the forums which in the end would only look bad for them as the "community council" experiment they wanted to have in the first place would be a failure on their part due to who they invited.

I'd say their motive is to invite people that don't agree with them and have feedback on how their specific playstyle could be improved, but are able to describe that in a constructive and respectful manner. Sadly that latter part is often mistaken for being a yes man these days, simply because people have gotten used to needing to read someone being upset/outraged for feedback to seem genuine.

If people trust me on my word, which I know is something that's frankly unlikely these days, I know for a fact there are people on the council that don't agree with choices Blizzard made and how that affected their playstyle (reading through some of the threads on the forum should also give you that idea). I obviously can't say that this is the case for everyone since I don't have an impression of every single member, but there's quite a few in there.

I personally don't agree with some choices they made/are making even though most of these (for me) relate to things outside of the game, but are still related to WoW nonetheless.

You know for a fact that some of the council members aren't yes men? Who, and how?

I have no real idea why you think Blizzard would have that motive.

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If that ends up being the case, that will be pretty apparent in what kind of things end up actually getting discussed on the forum and whether or not any of it will have impact, which would only reflect badly on Blizzard.

I get that people feel like this is all being done in bad faith and it won't do anything, but if there is genuinely a chance this ends up improving anything in the slightest I'm not going to waste that chance purely on assumptions based on the past. I'm willing to put some energy into this, if that ends up being wasted it'll be a shame but I'd still have tried, which is good enough for me.

Assumptions based on the past is actually called evidence based on behavioral patterns. It seems like you are looking down on people because they are skeptical in this situation.

[Lahis]

I actually got a pretty long and detailed survey from bliz about why I quit playing in shadowlands and what I did or did not enjoy, so they are at least gathering some info. Whether they are going to use that info to make the game better I couldn't say.

Don't worry, they won't use that for anything.

[MoanaLisa]

I have no real idea why you think Blizzard would have that motive.

I believe they are genuinely interested in hearing about stuff people don't like but they would like to have more info than "TORGHAST SUCKS", etc. If they're smart they will encourage everyone who has issues with any part of the game to explain what and importantly why. The level of discourse on their own forums is generally useless for this, never mind fan sites like this one which apparently is full of bitter-enders who can't let go of the game.

It's 100% non-intuitive that they would go to the trouble of setting this up simply to have everyone praise them for everything. They don't need to do that.

That doesn't mean they will be changing a lot of things but it makes sense to try and get more useful feedback than "X is great" or "X is terrible" with zero explanation of why they think that.

[Lex Icon]

i hope they start replying more. that PvP gearing thread was good for a laugh.

[klaps_05]

Council posts responses were already summarized and amount to pretty much "you players dont get it or are wrong or thanks for the feedback". The issue is always the same - blizzard is completely unwilling to re-do/change stuff when its already on beta/ptr. Thats why the council shouldve been blizzard showing top players, the ones who practically drive the marketing of the game, a willingness to listen and address the top concerns. Instead we have 3-4 guys spamming new topics and threads, but hopefully will be removed from the council soon.

[Otrew]

Wow council is wow Reddit without memes and shit posts. They know/have the info. 9.2 look nice and 9.1.5 made a lot of changed asked since beta. They can make a good game. SL has been since the begining a very easy to fix exp. They just decide to prioritize sub timers giving us chores.

[Echo of Soul]

Casual "meaningful" gear progression is not a thing, Shadowland has the best gearing path for casuals, you can get Normal Raid gear in 3 days back in 9.0, and you can get Heroic raid gear level from Korthia.

But none of it will ever be meaningful, because casual gear mean it will be owned by 99% of the playerbase anyway.
To find meaning in a casual gears, which is intended to be accessible for everyone is a fool's quest.

Works just fine for FFXIV, in fact it's one of the reasons people moved over from WoW, they were tired of being treated like second class citizens. Fun fact, not a single hardcore raider in FFXIV complain about casuals getting good gear a few months after they got it themselves.

[Osperand]

I mean, most people are pretty aware that the council is a sham to begin with. Blizzard, specifically the WoW team in this discussion, has been doing the same thing for years now. The cycle has repeated itself for the last 4 expansions, it's not a coincidence anymore.

1) Alpha/Beta feedback for the most part entirely ignored
2) Game releases in an incomplete state with several game-breaking bugs, incomplete systems, class balance being a mess, and core features that are sloppily made
3) Players play the game for a month or two at the beginning of the expansion and quit in droves after post-launch feedback mostly ignored
4) WoW team makes some kind of statement saying "we're going to listen to you guys"
5) They implement some kind of non-fix that doesn't solve any issues with specific features and systems giving the illusion of "listening" (such as valor points this expansion)
6) Takes months for them to "listen" and even then insist on continuing the same failing philosophies (such as heavy time-gating and grinding)
7) The second players find a way to break out of the arduous and boring chores they force on the playerbase they quickly and heavily nerf it and call it an "exploit"
8) They make another statement and find some kind of idiotic way to pin the problems with the community perception of the game and "commit" to making a better game (in this case it's the Council)
9) They implement changes nobody asked for and go "see we're listening"
10) More players give up trying for the remainder of the expansion, continue quitting in droves, Blizzard acts confused as to why this is the case and makes a final statement saying "we'll do better next time, promise" and completely abandon the current expansion leaving it a sloppy mess for several months that nobody is happy with
11) Repeat from Step 1

And then Blizzard release a new pet or mount in store and they all buy it and sub again. Sad but the game is propped up by a lot of people who just cannot let it go, no matter how little they enjoy the game. Why should they listen? you will pay the sub anyway

[relaxok]

I'm planning on quitting this year

Say it ain’t so, Alram

[Mendzia]

This idea was dead from the beginning of me.
They already kicked the one person who gave them valid points saying he is racist.
That shows how much they care about the game.

[shise]

I fear the whole idea was merely a PR stunt.
Obviously, they are not going to call it a day on it.. but hey, it has been holidays as many mentioned.

But do not expect much to come out of it anyway. WoW is ruled by a board of (by definition on the subject) "incompetent" business men, not the players or devs, sadly.

[Trumpcat]

Internal testing, alpha testing, closed beta, open beta, ptr... Whatever the role of this "council" is, it's certainly not to provide missing feedback.

Also lol at people who call anyone who plays the game a hardcore player.

I believe they are genuinely interested in hearing about stuff people don't like but they would like to have more info than "TORGHAST SUCKS", etc. If they're smart they will encourage everyone who has issues with any part of the game to explain what and importantly why. The level of discourse on their own forums is generally useless for this, never mind fan sites like this one which apparently is full of bitter-enders who can't let go of the game.

It's 100% non-intuitive that they would go to the trouble of setting this up simply to have everyone praise them for everything. They don't need to do that.

That doesn't mean they will be changing a lot of things but it makes sense to try and get more useful feedback than "X is great" or "X is terrible" with zero explanation of why they think that.

Isn't that the point of beta and PTR? There always are numerous very detailed, very popular and very well articulated feedback threads that describe fundamental flaws in the design of the upcoming content. It is frankly disrespectful to the people who put the effort to test the content and provide the feedback in hopes of having a better game, to so easily dismiss them. As usual the designs are released as intended anyway and they end up being flawed, as pointed by testers, only to be changed a patch or two later. There has been a lot of feedback on Torghast too, besides that it sucks.

[MoanaLisa]

Isn't that the point of beta and PTR?

The point of beta and PTR is to find and report bugs, it's not at all a free-for-all bitch session on how the game should be designed. People do that but it's not the reason to have betas and PTR's. It's for bugs, not early critics reviews and for amateur designers to weigh in.

[Lahis]

The point of beta and PTR is to find and report bugs, it's not at all a free-for-all bitch session on how the game should be designed. People do that but it's not the reason to have betas and PTR's. It's for bugs, not early critics reviews and for amateur designers to weigh in.

Alright, so no feedback should ever be given.

[Marlamin]

You know for a fact that some of the council members aren't yes men? Who, and how?

I'm on the council and have talked with several members outside of the forums and the ones I've talked to definitely have gripes with some of the choices Blizzard made or are making. I'm obviously not going to get into any details or name any names as these were private conversations, but if anyone actually decides to read the council forums there's already quite a bit of it, just in a constructive manner.

I have no real idea why you think Blizzard would have that motive.

If this ends up going the same way (aka being entirely ignored) as the "private council" and other public feedback places, this will end up being purely negative PR on their part. Public forums, PTR/Beta feedback/reports and private Discords are easily ignored without visible consequences. These are (currently) 30-40 people they specifically invited to give feedback with the intent of listening to it, and if like everyone seems to expect Blizz decide not to listen/ignore it, in this very public manner, this entire thing won't reflect good on them in the slightest.

Assumptions based on the past is actually called evidence based on behavioral patterns. It seems like you are looking down on people because they are skeptical in this situation.

I'm also skeptical, I'm not sure where you got from that I'm not or I'm looking down on anyone who is. I literally said IF there is a chance this ends up improving anything, not that this will improve anything. I think I've made it pretty clear that I think it's pretty likely the council isn't going to work, I'm just holding out a sliver of hope that it might and am putting effort into it in the case that it does end up mattering.

It might be difficult to understand for some that I'm not taking an absolutist "it won't work" or "it will work" stance, but am close to "it won't work" but still hoping it will, as anyone who wants the game to be good should. If you don't want the game to ever be good again, I don't know why anyone is bothering discussing the effectiveness of things like the council in the first place.

Say it ain’t so, Alram

It so.

[Kokolums]

I believe they are genuinely interested in hearing about stuff people don't like but they would like to have more info than "TORGHAST SUCKS", etc. If they're smart they will encourage everyone who has issues with any part of the game to explain what and importantly why. The level of discourse on their own forums is generally useless for this, never mind fan sites like this one which apparently is full of bitter-enders who can't let go of the game.

It's 100% non-intuitive that they would go to the trouble of setting this up simply to have everyone praise them for everything. They don't need to do that.

That doesn't mean they will be changing a lot of things but it makes sense to try and get more useful feedback than "X is great" or "X is terrible" with zero explanation of why they think that.

I think you are super naive.

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a lot of people seems to not understand that point of beta is to make sure things work AS INTENDED, not as PLAYERS WANT THEM TO

I cannot even begin to fathom THIS line of reasoning.

Lets apply it to car repair. “Oh i am going to need to change my oil in 500 miles. Im getting great advice on the best ways to get it done. But the problem is that it is TOO EARLY. I havent driven those 500 miles yet. Oh well, i guess i have no other choice but to ignore all of this advice and attack people for giving it. Then once its actually time to change my oil, ill set up a council to get good feedback.

Ok its time to set up a council. Hey, why did everyone leave? Why cant i get good advice now?”

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Id be afraid to suggest a good restaurant for dinner to moanalisa. Shed probably attack me and say “dinner is still in beta. Its breakfast time. Give that advice that the CORRECT time PLEASE ugh”

[Kralljin]

I believe they are genuinely interested in hearing about stuff people don't like but they would like to have more info than "TORGHAST SUCKS", etc.

Considering they have had private forums / discord with people selected by Blizzard, i think they already had the avenue to gather that feedback.
And that completely ignores that they could just have community managers gather that feedback and present it to the devs, which is actually part of their job.

To me, this whole "They want more concise feedback than "OMG THIS SUX"" argument is just a strawman, it's supposed to distract and make excuses for the issue that Blizzard disregarded warranted feedback because they disagreed with it.

The point of beta and PTR is to find and report bugs, it's not at all a free-for-all bitch session on how the game should be designed. People do that but it's not the reason to have betas and PTR's. It's for bugs, not early critics reviews and for amateur designers to weigh in.

Funy, i recall that Blizzard originally pushed Torghast and Covenant quite early onto the Beta Servers for specifically the reason that people can give feedback on it.

They can't rework an entire system, but when players have the impression that a feature will be an incoming trainwreck, a developer has to make a call whether that's warranted and possibly react on it, not shrug and go "Well, Beta is no place for feedback, move along!".

[ArenaDk]

Players are good in finding things that are not good, but players are also bad in finding solutions.So aslong as the council points out what needs another look by the devs, they already did their work.

Hands down, none of us is even close to qualified in offering solutions to blizzard when it comes to issues. If you think you know a solution that is optimal, you are lying to yourself.

[darklogrus]

I believe they are genuinely interested in hearing about stuff people don't like but they would like to have more info than "TORGHAST SUCKS", etc. If they're smart they will encourage everyone who has issues with any part of the game to explain what and importantly why. The level of discourse on their own forums is generally useless for this, never mind fan sites like this one which apparently is full of bitter-enders who can't let go of the game.

It's 100% non-intuitive that they would go to the trouble of setting this up simply to have everyone praise them for everything. They don't need to do that.

That doesn't mean they will be changing a lot of things but it makes sense to try and get more useful feedback than "X is great" or "X is terrible" with zero explanation of why they think that.

They could care less what people have to say about anything that contradicts their ideas. We can just look at all the well thought out posts about the Cov's back in Alpha an then Beta and then 9.0 and then 9.0.5 and then in 9.1 (an every PTR in between) that was ignored and brushed off until the pop plummeted.

In the end I doubt anything will come of this, the forum can light up with why A an B in 9.2 are completely broken and the issue will barely be discussed and never addressed til long after the fact.