"Cynically negative" community cause of communication breakdown

[SirCowdog]

But thats the community getting those threads locked.

You don't lock or delete entire threads, especially not ones started by intelligent and articulate posts, because a few bad apples decided to spew vitriol into it. You nuke and ban those bad posters, leaving the good ones to continue improving the community.

Otherwise all you're doing is killing your community. Which is exactly what leads to the situation we're in now. When the CMs view the entire community as bad because a handful of people...then those are bad CMs.

[Deleted]

MMO-C literally has a blue tracker showing communication. Just because you don't like what they respond to, or don't make a change you want doesn't mean they aren't communicating. They also don't need to respond to hundreds of posts a day. As has been mentioned elsewhere, they like to read and consider before responding, which makes sense.

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But thats the community getting those threads locked.

Lol, lets have a look at them, shall we....


https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...ion-is-needed/

A post about nothing, just a locked thread with no real need to post, especially not mentioning the shit show that the thread apparently was.

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...face-on-alpha/

Jet another useless reaction in a horrible attempt to be funny.

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...g-animals-now/

Another useless attempt at humor.

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...theon-trinket/

The CM whine in question.

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...-now-or-later/

A generic question about what to do with professions.

I do not see any discussion anywhere about classes, what works and what doesn't work currently, nothing about changes or anything like that. The only thing that comes close is the watercooler dev talks, but those are pretty generic as well. The community can come with a 1000 different way of doing things, but when there isn't any feedback given back to the community by blizzard then there is no chance of a discussion.

[Caolela]

Something along the lines of templates were asked for. People wanted to get rid of gear. It was often a thread here. Just because you don't like the change doesn't really mean anything.

Something like "balance" was asked for, by fools who forgot that WoW is (was) an MMORPG and is meant to progress and build your char the way you want through leveling and gear - not the way a template arbitrarily sets stats, and certainly no one asked for the RNG-piled-on-RNG fest that we have now.

All of this to increase time-logged-in since that's how Blizz measures profit now, not from number of subs since they've lost so many.

Blizz has turned WoW into something else. It is a MMO only in name.

As for Ornyx, he needs to put on his big boy pants when he goes to work and STFU with the whining to his customers. He sounds like a spoiled yuppie brat who didn't get the car he wanted this semester.

[Marmot]

That's the whole point of having community managers. Seriously, the number of people who don't understand that the whole reason you have community management is because the community isn't going to self manage and be positive/constructive on its own is mind boggling. Lemme boil it down for ya, if it was a reasonable expectation for the community to articulate their problems in a clear and constructive manner then Ornyx and most of the other CM's would be out of a job.

That's fine if the CM can understand what they're angry about, but half the time it's just "raaah fuck you blizzard!!1"

[MoanaLisa]

You don't lock or delete entire threads, especially not ones started by intelligent and articulate posts, because a few bad apples decided to spew vitriol into it. You nuke and ban those bad posters, leaving the good ones to continue improving the community.

In fact, sometimes you do because it's pointless to go on. Very often the thread is forever derailed and that's that.

CM's know well enough to pick out what's useful in a closed thread and ignore the rest.

The other fact here which isn't getting enough airing is that community managers have tons of other things to do and that Blizzard does have a separate (but startlingly ineffective) moderation staff. There's way too much assumption here that when a CM barges into a thread with something that people think that reading forums all day is the primary part of a CM's job. It isn't. Doing PR is the primary piece of their job and attending meetings and keeping up as best they can with things as it's very clear that the developers don't pass along all that much.

[Jester Joe]

Lol, lets have a look at them, shall we....


https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...ion-is-needed/

A post about nothing, just a locked thread with no real need to post, especially not mentioning the shit show that the thread apparently was.

Explained that there was such option. Deleting the thread wouldn't have answered that question. A useful post, not sure why you'd think that was bad.

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...face-on-alpha/

Jet another useless reaction in a horrible attempt to be funny.

Took a whole 5 seconds to post. Which in posting, people know Blizzard is now aware of the bug, without needing to flat out say "Yeah we know now".

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...g-animals-now/

Another useless attempt at humor.

I chuckled, and so did others it seems.

Yeah, didn't contribute anything, but another case of "it took them 2 minutes to post that total I imagine".
Would you rather they be dead silent?

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...theon-trinket/

The CM whine in question.

Requested feedback, which ended up in a hotfix that had a pretty nice QoL change for people who play multiple specs. Not sure why you're using that as an example.

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...-now-or-later/

A generic question about what to do with professions.

Did part of their job and answered a question to help a poster.
What's the issue with that?

I do not see any discussion anywhere about classes, what works and what doesn't work currently, nothing about changes or anything like that. The only thing that comes close is the watercooler dev talks, but those are pretty generic as well. The community can come with a 1000 different way of doing things, but when there isn't any feedback given back to the community by blizzard then there is no chance of a discussion.

Because CMs aren't class designers.

They don't discuss what is and isn't balanced, what could work better, what QoL would be better.

They read it, and pass along the message if anything. Although with it still being early Alpha, I highly doubt they're even needed to do that, the class design team is probably checking responses and feedback themselves.

[Deleted]

Explained that there was such option. Deleting the thread wouldn't have answered that question. A useful post, not sure why you'd think that was bad.



Took a whole 5 seconds to post. Which in posting, people know Blizzard is now aware of the bug, without needing to flat out say "Yeah we know now".



I chuckled, and so did others it seems.

Yeah, didn't contribute anything, but another case of "it took them 2 minutes to post that total I imagine".
Would you rather they be dead silent?



Requested feedback, which ended up in a hotfix that had a pretty nice QoL change for people who play multiple specs. Not sure why you're using that as an example.



Did part of their job and answered a question to help a poster.
What's the issue with that?



Because CMs aren't class designers.

They don't discuss what is and isn't balanced, what could work better, what QoL would be better.

They read it, and pass along the message if anything. Although with it still being early Alpha, I highly doubt they're even needed to do that, the class design team is probably checking responses and feedback themselves.

I really do not need to have it explained to me why they posted what they did, i was pointing out that most of it is none informational for posters in general and that many of the blue are "funny" jabs. I merely looked at the first page for these examples.

That whine wasnt good for anything but this CM could not help himself and started bashing the people he is supposed to manage. He could have been nice, but he had to take jabs at people because they do not use the right sort of phrasing as far as the CM is concerned.

CM's really do not need to be DEV's in order to make a discussion and be part of it, they need to make the community work, and they are failing hard at this. Again, not seeing anything on class discussions, not seeing anything on class balance nor are long existing bugs ever addressed. What i do see is mindless jabs, simple questions answered and all around more uselessness.

There is really no need for them to tag something with a blue post just to say that people are posting crap, there is no need to inform someone of something that has been known far and long by thousands. All in all, i think it is pretty rich for the CM's to go all nutter on people they are supposed to manage. Do you really think that bitching about how bad people are is going to help him do his job? Do you think that his ranting about how people arent constructive is going to make them more constructive? Or do you realize that his ranting is only going to add to the toxicity of that forum in general?

[Jester Joe]

I really do not need to have it explained to me why they posted what they did, i was pointing out that most of it is none informational for posters in general and that many of the blue are "funny" jabs. I merely looked at the first page for these examples.

That whine wasnt good for anything but this CM could not help himself and started bashing the people he is supposed to manage. He could have been nice, but he had to take jabs at people because they do not use the right sort of phrasing as far as the CM is concerned.

He was quite nice. To the people who weren't insulting saying "a 5 year old could make a better system".
Even then, he was just a bit blunt, not even rude. If that's offensive, I don't know what to say.

CM's really do not need to be DEV's in order to make a discussion and be part of it, they need to make the community work, and they are failing hard at this. Again, not seeing anything on class discussions, not seeing anything on class balance nor are long existing bugs ever addressed. What i do see is mindless jabs, simple questions answered and all around more uselessness.

The most they can do is say "Yeah I passed it along". Do you think they're told what's going on every moment?

And you're expecting the impossible from them. No one can make a community work except the community itself. Don't try pointing fingers at others, realize the issue is far more wide spread. All the CMs can do is squash the problematic ones, which just leads them to other locations like reddit.

There is really no need for them to tag something with a blue post just to say that people are posting crap

They didn't, they said the thread was beyond saving. That's a pretty gentle way to put it.

[Deleted]

I am "cynically negative" because there is not enough challenging content in the game. BfA seems to be no exception in that regard. The so-called island expeditions are just glorified faceroll invasion points with more RNG.

But I guess there is nothing one can do. Having more of the content being facerollable means more potential profit...

[Deleted]

He was quite nice. To the people who weren't insulting saying "a 5 year old could make a better system".
Even then, he was just a bit blunt, not even rude. If that's offensive, I don't know what to say.

It was anything but professional and only adds to the whole toxicity.

The most they can do is say "Yeah I passed it along". Do you think they're told what's going on every moment?

They should be told what is going on if they are the ones that are supposed to keep people posted. If they are not supposed to keep people posted but just manage the forum then they should just not talk.

And you're expecting the impossible from them. No one can make a community work except the community itself. Don't try pointing fingers at others, realize the issue is far more wide spread. All the CMs can do is squash the problematic ones, which just leads them to other locations like reddit.

On their forum they are the only ones who are responsible for how their forum community works. The fact that people feel the need to go elsewhere in order to just be able to discuss the topics only shows me that they are doing an exceptionally shitty job at the official forum. Part of their job is to create a setting where people can communicate their idea's, many people are willing to do this, but only for so long. When people realize that this is a one way street where they never get feedback on their work they will get salty and stop being constructive.

If the community is to blame then they are to blame, they are the ones that created the community and they are the ones who refuse to have a serious discussion. You can't blame the community for getting salty with people who say that they love their input but never ever show this.

They didn't, they said the thread was beyond saving. That's a pretty gentle way to put it.

They should not have mentioned it at all, they should be glad with all feedback. That they do not get the feedback they want is a their problem, not a problem of the community. The communities problem is the CM's and the lack of their participation in the whole process.

[SirCowdog]

In fact, sometimes you do because it's pointless to go on. Very often the thread is forever derailed and that's that.

CM's know well enough to pick out what's useful in a closed thread and ignore the rest..

I disagree at a fundamental level. IMO CMs should be using a finer touch than that if they want to promote the kind of community they claim they want.

[Liarparadox]

The community is a bunch of immature, vitriolic idiots. They have nothing constructive to say. If they want communication they should get themselves civilised. As it stands they don’t deserve anything at all, except maybe the back of hand.

Go read the first page of threads in general wow forums and tell me that any self respecting adult would engage with that load of drivel.

yeah I gotta agree. I mean I want communication; it'd be nice and all. But they are human and how the community communicate is going to impact how and if they communicate to the community. The good people get screwed over by the immaturity, which sucks. But it never ceases to amaze me how horrible the wow and mmo champ community is in so many ways. These forums are just horribly toxic. I can't remember a thread I've jumped into to read over the last several years where there hasn't been a host of people purposely taking text out of context or playing on a single word to manipulate it in the least charitable way imaginable or disagreeing just for the sake of, oh I don't know, entertainment/boredom/sense of superiority....? I doesn't even matter what the topic is or how obviously true the statement is; there is always going to be some group of posters that try to pick it apart based on some ridiculous interpretation or spin, even though they know full well this would never fly in a F2F convo; they'd look like complete morons.

While I want communication for sure, it's difficult to fault Blizz atm given the inevitable absurd reactions to any/all communication. I've been highly critical of Blizz for lots of things, even lack of communication; but atm I can't say I sympathize much with the community.

[sillag]

blizzard got the community they wanted. battle for azeroth is specifically designed to get the community into two factions that hate eachother. it worked to get people invested in the election and its working here. yes it turns the community into a toxic cesspool but blizzard doesnt care because at least the players are invested on some level this time unlike warlords of draenor

[Segus1992]

Nope, there are plenty of classes you can't bring in, anyone who can't see this is a blind moron.

This is what you said though, not "there are other classes that are more optimally suited for X". Hunters and Mages are pretty poor in just pure DPS rankings, but they're definitely not unviable, even in mythic raids. That's exactly what the guy you were responding to said.

[Gadzooks]

I suggest you read the post at the top of this page.
After that, think again about what you said and what examples people gave to showcase that what you are implying is not the case.

Okay, Dad. LOL. I feel so ashamed now. Or something.

[Deleted]

This is what you said though, not "there are other classes that are more optimally suited for X". Hunters and Mages are pretty poor in just pure DPS rankings, but they're definitely not unviable, even in mythic raids. That's exactly what the guy you were responding to said.

There hasn't been a Class you can't bring to any Raid in years. Anyone that thinks there is are pseudo-elitists and/or morons.

Was responding to this, so no, there are classes that are sub par, like you said mages and hunters atm. If you think that anyone is going to give a hunter or mage a spot over an equally skilled aff lock is not thinking straight. Hunters might have be needed for utility, but all the mage utility can be brought with a simple pack of drums or a better dps with TW/BL.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/17#difficulty=4

Just look at the logs, you'd be crazy to pick a dps that's about 10% less then others, granted, some of their specs are about "middle of the pack" but still the difference is very high.
Of course you can kill a boss with one of the lower dps spec in your group, this has always been the case, if you over gear content you can bring a freshly dinged person. But at the end of the day if you can get a better dps in you'd be foolish not to take them over these "lesser specs".

[MoanaLisa]

I disagree at a fundamental level. IMO CMs should be using a finer touch than that if they want to promote the kind of community they claim they want.

What they want is a nicer, more respectful community that doesn't think the first thing they should do is insult one another before proceeding on to demand developers be fired because some change did/didn't get made.

I know that there's little-to-nothing they can do about that other than issuing wholesale bans and making the Blizz forum read like some worse version of Elitist Jerks. Which as boring as it was, was pretty damn well-behaved. They know that and I suspect you do too. Their faith in their entreaties for people to be respectful to them and to one another after all these years are expected and quaint. That's not going to happen.

[Logwyn]

In a recent Blizzard post, Ornyx insists that it is the "cynically negative" community at fault for the communication breakdown between Blizzard and the community:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/...age=6#post-116
He fails to see "any reason why it would be in our best interest to actively engage with" this part of the community.

My response is simply this: if a community manager does not wish to manage and participate with the community then they should immediately resign and find someone who is willing to try. If that is how they really feel, we will continue stuck in this limbo state indefinitely as long as they're around.

It is not helpful in the slightest when one side has clearly given up attempting to manage the community as a community manager. There is nothing more frustrating than employees who stick around when they have clearly given up and burnt out. Be the change they want us to be.

Sounds like needs a new job or a brothel/strip club visit

[Deleted]

In a recent Blizzard post, Ornyx insists that it is the "cynically negative" community at fault for the communication breakdown between Blizzard and the community:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/...age=6#post-116
He fails to see "any reason why it would be in our best interest to actively engage with" this part of the community.

My response is simply this: if a community manager does not wish to manage and participate with the community then they should immediately resign and find someone who is willing to try. If that is how they really feel, we will continue stuck in this limbo state indefinitely as long as they're around.

It is not helpful in the slightest when one side has clearly given up attempting to manage the community as a community manager. There is nothing more frustrating than employees who stick around when they have clearly given up and burnt out. Be the change they want us to be.

I could kind of agree with him if Blizzard actually cared to respond to constructive and reasonable feedback.
Legion beta proved the contrary. There were dozens and dozens of feedback threads made by competent people who highlighted the many problems in class design and rng with spreadsheets, examples and beta testing. They got ignored, not even a single response to note they were reading them. Not a single change to prove they understood the community worries.

Do I need to rember the ridicoulus stances of blue regarding feedback? Just at the start of Legion beta they stated "if it's too short it's not valuable feedback", then later, when people started doing accurate wall of posts, they changed to "if it's too long we can't read them all, it should be synthetized". If someone has the time he can go fetch them from the archive.

As much as I agree with the general statement that the community is whining most of the time, Blizzard is still at fault for their attitude. Their "communication" (or rather lack of it) failed under every aspect. They cover themseves in radio silence for months, and then pop up from nowehere with Q&A saying how everything is fine and it's going exactly how they planned and the community will surely like it. You don't need a genius to know that if you treat your community like shit and ignore it, they will eventually do the same and create many useless threads mainly used to vent their rage, rather than give feedback.
As things stand now, all communication channel could be closed and nothing would be better or worse than now.

[SirCowdog]

What they want is a nicer, more respectful community that doesn't think the first thing they should do is insult one another before proceeding on to demand developers be fired because some change did/didn't get made.

I know that there's little-to-nothing they can do about that other than issuing wholesale bans and making the Blizz forum read like some worse version of Elitist Jerks. Which as boring as it was, was pretty damn well-behaved. They know that and I suspect you do too. Their faith in their entreaties for people to be respectful to them and to one another after all these years are expected and quaint. That's not going to happen.

Or they could put their noses to the grindstone(like they expect their players to) and go in and ban/suspend bad posters one at a time, slowly weeding out the toxic aspects while making it abundantly clear that they won't tolerate hateful nonsense.

Granted, this only extends to the mediums they have influence on, and won't extend to things like YouTube, streamers, or 3rd party forums. But they can put the work in on their own backyard.

Just bitching that there's toxic community members while looking for easy solutions like locking entire threads because a handful of posters, or ignoring large swathes of you community because you can't be bothered to actually try, just isn't going to work.