Blizzard does not know how to moderate forums tho. So, it doesnt matter how many times they create new forums, it will always devolve into a shitshow.
Its like these forums. The mmoc forums are widely viewed as hypertoxic. But thats because the moderators do not have a clue how to mod. And on top of that, they refuse criticism on the moderation ideas, so it remains gutter-quality here.
TO FIX WOW:1. smaller server sizes & server-only LFG awarding satchels, so elite players help others. 2. "helper builds" with loom powers - talent trees so elite players cast buffs on low level players XP gain, HP/mana, regen, damage, etc. 3. "helper ilvl" scoring how much you help others. 4. observer games like in SC to watch/chat (like twitch but with MORE DETAILS & inside the wow UI) 5. guild leagues to compete with rival guilds for progression (with observer mode).6. jackpot world mobs.
If MMO-C staff would moderate these forums any more than happens now, they'd be even more dead.
Often the problem is not moderation itself, but the issues that would come from assertive moderation. These range between forums being abandoned and dying (like Elitist Jerks btw, who practically moderated their forums to death) or in case of companies - claims of censorship, which would simply destroy credibility.
It's not that easy of a thing. Blizz could start moderating more, but you'd then get pepegas pouncing on it with their videos about how Blizzard is Fourth Reich or some such and you can bet it would stick too.
Not sure if they still have them but NYT and WSJ do a pretty good job at moderating their comment sections.
The trick is to moderate when someone is not contributing to the conversation and has become hostile and starts throwing around insults.
Many perceive this to be censorship, but if no meaningful conversation is actually occurring and you're just replying to get the last word, ya moderate that.
For example:
Poster A: I think M+ should move into a queue.
Poster B: Oh here's the bads making arguments
Poster B in that scenario should have thier comment removed as it does not thing to further the conversation, but rather just insults the original poster.
Correct moderation would be to kick people that launch personal attacks. They dont do that tho. Instead, they allow personal attacks all over the place but then make iffy judgment calls on what is “trolling” and ban that. Thats the absolute worst way to mod forums. People are afraid to bring new ideas out of fear of being called a troll and are encouraged to attack other posters. So it turns into a pure shitshow like we have now.
I dont know where you get the idea that heavy moderation takes place. There is NO moderation just a bunch of judgement calls that feel random. Blizz keeps doing that too.
Last edited by Kokolums; 2022-01-04 at 06:17 PM.
TO FIX WOW:1. smaller server sizes & server-only LFG awarding satchels, so elite players help others. 2. "helper builds" with loom powers - talent trees so elite players cast buffs on low level players XP gain, HP/mana, regen, damage, etc. 3. "helper ilvl" scoring how much you help others. 4. observer games like in SC to watch/chat (like twitch but with MORE DETAILS & inside the wow UI) 5. guild leagues to compete with rival guilds for progression (with observer mode).6. jackpot world mobs.
You're not getting what I said.
Let me take another approach to getting my point across - if MMO-C would hand on more infractions and bans to their, what, ~100-200 actual active posters, this place would die.
In case of Blizzard - their forums are game forums, these are both inherently more toxic, their position as impartial is shaky at best and these are their customers too after all. Quite obvious why they can't push rules too hard there.
TO FIX WOW:1. smaller server sizes & server-only LFG awarding satchels, so elite players help others. 2. "helper builds" with loom powers - talent trees so elite players cast buffs on low level players XP gain, HP/mana, regen, damage, etc. 3. "helper ilvl" scoring how much you help others. 4. observer games like in SC to watch/chat (like twitch but with MORE DETAILS & inside the wow UI) 5. guild leagues to compete with rival guilds for progression (with observer mode).6. jackpot world mobs.
Well, that's what I just said, so yes I agree, that's how they see them.
Blizzard should listen to player feedback on design. Not obey, obviously, but take the feedback and consider it.
This is incorrect, historically. Again I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt now, but in the past they said they're looking for actionable high-quality reasoned feedback but they absolutely did not accept it anywhere. Not on fansites like this one, not on their own hosted public forums, not on Twitter, and not on their private forums. Not since GC left.
There were two ways to get Blizzard to consider feedback, before the community council anyway.
a) Be a Twitch streamer or YouTuber with a large audience.
b) Devote months of time to gathering consensus on multiple forums, Twitter, etc. Post polls. Forum threads hundreds of pages long. Be relentless with this-- then maybe they'll notice it. I did this myself successfully in the Shadowlands beta. This was on a design matter with nearly 100% player consensus that it should be changed, and it was not easy to get developer attention.
Hopefully now, I can just go to the main council member for my class or whatever, and sincerely convince him or her I'm right, and get them to post a thread.
Last edited by Schizoide; 2022-01-04 at 06:58 PM.
Exactly, thats the point. Players are good in finding flaws, it doesnt matter if its a personal one only or not. If someone finds something to be disliked, its a flaw. But this also plays into why player are bad in fixing things. As you mentioned dozens may not feel its a flaw in the same way , none at all or for the same reason. And the solution may be worse than the flaw for the majority again or even for the complainer themselfs. Thats why pointing out stuff even if its a personal grudge is still valuable, just getting salty about it and demanding tailored fixes is not.
A response with "We disagree on this and here's why" would be the ideal method. GC used to do this all the time, he would post on forums, have his fireside chat blog posts, etc. It isn't about them agreeing all the time, it's about holding open conversations with players and not treating us with contempt.
In the case of the Shadowlands beta they never did respond to us, but after a couple of weeks they made the exact change we requested, and the game is far better for it. For that class, anyway.
Last edited by Schizoide; 2022-01-04 at 08:10 PM.
Does not some of this feedback end up in future patches? Feedback is fine but the great majority of the unending bitching I see is that it wasn't changed immediately for launch. If true then it's misleading to say they "absolutely did not accept it anywhere."
Does anyone expect them to really pull major features from an expansion on their say-so? Do they expect launch to be delayed for months while they sort through 15 different opinions, often wildly contradictory, about major features? Come on....
Last edited by MoanaLisa; 2022-01-04 at 08:13 PM.
"...money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."
I agree that GC's communication methods were better than the current team's but credit where credit's due they've been exceptionally transparent with the 9.2 PTR build thus far so hopefully that's a leaf that's being turned over. I was more trying to separate your take from the typical "Blizzard didn't make Mage do 1 billion DPS in every situation like I asked so they obviously suck at applying feedback," nonsense you see on forums.
Historically, damn near ALL of it ends up in future patches, because when beta testers find consensus it's a dang sure bet non-beta players will agree. Every bandaid you see in X.1 patches and major turnaround you see in X.2s came after extensive, detailed, actionable, well-written beta feedback in beta forums that Blizzard completely ignored.
They simply do not want design feedback in the beta cycle, we both agree that is the case. And that is a huge mistake.
9.1.5 and 9.2 are huge corrections for Blizzard. With all the various scandals and hemorrhaging subscription counts, they're realizing hey, wait, we aren't immortal. Microtransaction revenue doesn't compensate for losing tons of players, because the whales won't play (or pay) without the minnows to impress. No king lives forever. So yes, they're scared, and they're trying to do better. Or at least saying they are, the proof will be in the pudding.
As for pulling features and making impactful changes due to beta feedback, yes I do think they should do that. Better to delay for a couple months than to release a turd. It's Blizzard, what happened to "When it's done"?
Last edited by Schizoide; 2022-01-04 at 08:20 PM.
Usually they just say so directly or did when the forums where hidden. They expressed openly multiple times they knew pvpers and raiders would hate covenants and wrote them off...
Then they remembered about a week after launch " o yeah we got rid of the old talent trees because players all ran identical builds....shit".
I don't think blizzard should use open forums for feedback but ignoring the players who understand the game better then they do is a massive mistake.
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They really shouldnt announce features until they are tested then. Even the ones they forced through like conduits were needed heavily into being bland choices and chores. If they can't be sure something shoukd be a hit...test first announce after.
A lot of the design choices in covenants were excellent. The rewards are all cosmetic and you can basically ignore them. The soulbinds are reasonably well-balanced across covenants. Not perfectly, but ain't nothing perfect.
Where they messed up is in the covenant combat abilities, restricting players from switching between covenants, and making anima hilariously scarce in patch 9.0, so clueful players basically figured they would give out a ton more anima later on and skipped those systems entirely. I for one didn't have my covenant upgraded past tier 1 until patch 9.1 came out.
The drawback of using open forums is the devs need to very carefully watch what they say. They can't speak freely, which they did on occasion do in the private ones-- but if they aren't listening to feedback anyway, who cares? In open forums, we know what the people on the council are putting forward.
But, didn't they already have multiple iterations of that? You can scoff at all the bitter people here or on the official forums or elsewhere, or even on exit polls when people cancel their subs, but they get plenty of good data from that too. Surely you've seen all the people speak out about how they were treated in the secret councils, right?
And really, your reply to my post is that a huge US capitalist company would never do something just for PR and praise? That idea is naive, and as you said, non-intuitive. This whole thing will cost them little time and money. If nothing positive comes of it, they can shrug and say they tried. Its basically a win-win for them, but we can't actually prove its just a PR stunt, sort of like how every year in the US close to Pride Month, companies will change their logos and things to rainbow designs and then never actually do anything. Its disingenuous. I remember this last year or two years ago, Bethesda had changed their Twitter icons to rainbows for only specific countries, excluding Bethesda-Russia or the Bethesda-Middle East. Like clearly they don't at all care about the cause if they are being two-faced about it.
Unfortunately to your point, Blizzard just doing have the pattern of positive behaviors to really get the benefit of the doubt with a large chunk of people, and that only if you want to consider their prior behavior on these exact types of councils.
Oh yeah, lets not forget - "you think you do, but you don't" -Blizzard Entertainment
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I don't think this excludes anyone from being a yes man.