"Cynically negative" community cause of communication breakdown

[Deleted]

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.

I don't care. He willingly took the job as Community Manager. He gets my money for doing this job, so he should do it.

Or should a Channel Digger as well be able to keep his job and still be paid after he openly refuses to do his job any further? I don't care for his feelings and I don't care if the job is fun. If he wants somebody to care, he can buy somebody with his wage.

[Deleted]

I think there is a path somewhere between "puking rainbows of positivity" and "cynical negativity" (i.e., rants and insults). If a consumer is unhappy with a product, they can...

• Be passive and accept it whether they like it or not (unlikely to get what you want).
• Be aggressive and go on a rant, insulting everyone who disagrees (unlikely to get what you want).
• Be assertive and explain your concern, then request a change that you think would improve things (still no guarantees, but more likely to help).

Note even being assertive is no guarantee. I can explain right now that I am concerned that forum posters are allowed to disagree with my divine wisdom, and ask very politely that moderators prevent the rest of you from posting, but the mods would of course decide that was neither balanced nor in the best interest of the forums. We argue in the forums every day. Blizz can't act on all feedback because so much of it is conflicting, and there are other players with opinions that aren't even here to express them.

The aggressive rants are a direct result of the way that the customers are treated to begin with. If you have done the whole assertive stance and it resulted in absolutely nothing then all that is left is an angry rant.

Feedback should be a two way street, but at the moment it is only one way. I have yet to see a single case were blizzard actually discusses design philosophy, normally its just players bringing forth idea's and then nothing from blizzard, not even a blue with a meaningless "thank you for the feedback". The only thing that is discussed now is a CM having a breakdown and sticking it to the community. Complaining to the community isn't very helpful, they aren't the ones that create the rules. If this CM really wants to change something then he should complain to blizzard, not to its customers like he is doing right now.

Even in angry rants there is valuable feedback, its just not put very eloquently. I understand that its not nice to have to sift through mountains of it, but then again, when they created the wailing wall that is the blizzard forum, they can't complain that the users use it as such.

[Deleted]

If you don't have the mentality for a job DON'T apply for it.

You never worked a day in your life now have you?

[Gadzooks]

He should be replaced then because he is a simple middle-man between Blizzard and the customers.

That's literally the definition of his job, lol.

"He should be fired because...because...he's doing his job!"

Right. Got it.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

The aggressive rants are a direct result of the way that the customers are treated to begin with. If you have done the whole assertive stance and it resulted in absolutely nothing then all that is left is an angry rant.

You don't abstain from angry rants because they aren't justified; you abstain from them because they don't work. Angry rants just push people away; they don't persuade anyone. Angry rants make you look irrational and not worth listening to.

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I don't care. He willingly took the job as Community Manager. He gets my money for doing this job, so he should do it.

Or should a Channel Digger as well be able to keep his job and still be paid after he openly refuses to do his job any further? I don't care for his feelings and I don't care if the job is fun. If he wants somebody to care, he can buy somebody with his wage.

His job description is defined by his supervisors. If they tell him to engage with cynical negativity, he will do so. If they tell him to ignore it and engage with the calm and rational people, he will do that. You might like to tell him what his job is, but you don't get to decide whether he's still working there next week.

[Deleted]

premium analysis of Community Management/Support responsabilities (aka duties)

pls apply for a leading position in CM, u truly serve the people!

[Deleted]

You don't abstain from angry rants because they aren't justified; you abstain from them because they don't work. Angry rants just push people away; they don't persuade anyone. Angry rants make you look irrational and not worth listening to.

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His job description is defined by his supervisors. If they tell him to engage with cynical negativity, he will do so. If they tell him to ignore it and engage with the calm and rational people, he will do that. You might like to tell him what his job is, but you don't get to decide whether he's still working there next week.

Im not saying angry rants is the way to go, im saying angry rants is a by product of blizzard ignoring people. If blizzard didn't ignore the people they would be far more constructive.

[SirCowdog]

.

I mean, FFS how many bugs do people encounter, and then say "I reported that in beta"? Like, all of them? WTF is the beta even for?

Beta is a pre order incentive to suck in impatient people, but also serves as an advertising platform via YouTubers and streamers. It hasn't been about finding and reports bugs for a long time now.

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I think there is a path somewhere between "puking rainbows of positivity" and "cynical negativity" (i.e., rants and insults). If a consumer is unhappy with a product, they can...

• Be passive and accept it whether they like it or not (unlikely to get what you want).
• Be aggressive and go on a rant, insulting everyone who disagrees (unlikely to get what you want).
• Be assertive and explain your concern, then request a change that you think would improve things (still no guarantees, but more likely to help).

Note even being assertive is no guarantee. I can explain right now that I am concerned that forum posters are allowed to disagree with my divine wisdom, and ask very politely that moderators prevent the rest of you from posting, but the mods would of course decide that was neither balanced nor in the best interest of the forums. We argue in the forums every day. Blizz can't act on all feedback because so much of it is conflicting, and there are other players with opinions that aren't even here to express them.

The problem is that I've seen, first hand, that well-written, intelligent, polite but critical threads get closed and even deleted because they didn't "Foster a positive atmosphere that Blizzard seeks to maintain in its community".

When that kind of post gets that kind of treatment, what is the community supposed to think? If they can't even provide constructive criticism without risking a thread lock and delete, where are they supposed to go from there?

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

Beta is a pre order incentive to suck in impatient people, but also serves as an advertising platform via YouTubers and streamers. It hasn't been about finding and reports bugs for a long time now.

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The problem is that I've seen, first hand, that well-written, intelligent, polite but critical threads get closed and even deleted because they didn't "Foster a positive atmosphere that Blizzard seeks to maintain in its community".

When that kind of post gets that kind of treatment, what is the community supposed to think? If they can't even provide constructive criticism without risking a thread lock and delete, where are they supposed to go from there?

I've posted many critical comments in bnet forums - mostly tank balance, outlaw rogue (dislike RtB), having more challenging world content... - I have never had a thread locked for that. In fact, the only threads I can remember having locked were here on MMO-C, and mostly because mod felt my thread was redundant. I agree it can be frustrating to have your thread closed, especially since you can't post a reply to what the mod said, and we're not even supposed to comment on moderator decisions, right? So yeah that can be frustrating. But I've never had one closed on B-net I don't think.

If you look over my comments, though, you will see I am generally very respectful, even when I disagree with something. At most I might use sarcasm but never personal attacks or anything mean-spirited. So many critical posts start out with "Blizz must be a bunch of idiots..." that I'm not surprised they roll their eyes at those.

[Azerate]

There are many people who have nothing constructive to say, they just bitch all day long about how they hate everything in the game, and still continue playing it.

There is definitely no point in trying to engage in a dialogue with them.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Community Manager doesn’t limit it self to managing the community at HQ. it’s their job to be the messenger on the forum if you cant take the heat get OUT of the kitchen. This is their problem if they can’t handle it and maybe they should find another job like Bashiok did.

No, the community (people like you) need to check yourselves. You're bad for the game.

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No, not for PvP. Many of us told Blizz repeatedly, well ahead of Legion release that templates, pruning, and their other shenannigans would bork the PvP format. They were told in the most respectful and reasonable of ways - all to no avail. Why? Because Acti/Blizz had their greedy agenda in front of them and nothing was going to stop this next money grab. Just like most corporations, they are insatiable but their job is to make you think it's OK.

It isn't. Many (60-70%+) have voted with their feet and got the fuck out as we know.

That isn't "making shit up". That's hard reality.

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.

[Deleted]

Honestly, I would also only inform customers, not go into discussion with them.

No matter the business.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

H
Now that that's out of the way, look at responsibilities 1, 2, and 3. A community manager is expected to serve as the liaison between the devs and the community, gather questions and from the community, and consolidate and report on community trends, topics, and sentiments.

"sentiments" is a rather important word here. A community managers job isn't only to be the middle man between the devs and community, but it is to assess the tone and mood of the community and respond appropriately in light of that. Not responsibilities 4 and 5; they're not only saying that CM's are to report on those trends, topics, and sentiments, but also that they are to take those into account and use that knowledge to help the team engage with the community. It's almost like their job is to manage the community or something rather than being a glorified customer complaint receptacle.

I know that this might not make sense to you if you don't have any customer service experience, but paying customers are rightfully entitled to the time and efforts of those who are paid to service them. Again I pose the question, what would be the point of paying a team to manage the community if said community was capable of self managing in a way that allowed devs to see customer criticisms without having to wade through piles and piles of shit in order to get at the root of the issue?

I'm not sure where it says that CMs are required to show us exactly how much feedback they send along, how many bad threads they shut down, and how many good threads they read/communicate within.

Customer complaint receptacle is exactly what they are, because the majority of the communication is just shit. Its bitching and moaning because someones favorite class isn't top DPS, or they don't like the class mounts, or whatever. Good communication is so rare its not funny.

Again, you don't actually have the numbers on what they do. You seem to be implying that the CMs do next to nothing. But they don't owe you a progress report on what they did every day.

The root of the issue is clearly the community. Save for outright bans, there isn't a good way to somehow wade through shit and do your job.

I have worked in customer service. And guess what? If a customer gets crazy, curses, causes a scene etc, they are THROWN OUT. HUNG UP ON. BANNED. Can you imagine some of the shit going on in forums happening in real life? If your every complaint was given in a similar fashion? Like if I went to Target and stomped my feet because I don't like the color red and think they should change their store colors to green. HMPH! HOW DARE THEY NOT LISTEN TO ME. *literally throws shit*

The post in question, in context, is directly talking about negative cynicism. It doesn't say they ignore criticism or don't do their jobs.

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The aggressive rants are a direct result of the way that the customers are treated to begin with.

No, people are shit all the time. Go to Youtube comments to see it. People just shitting on everything for the hell of it. Blizzards customers aren't being treated poorly.

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Im not saying angry rants is the way to go, im saying angry rants is a by product of blizzard ignoring people. If blizzard didn't ignore the people they would be far more constructive.

Do you want a special pat on the back every time you make a post? Do you think its possible that much of the posting (especially on official forums) isn't even constructive in the first place? Blizzard isn't ignoring you because they don't respond to your every post.

[MasterHamster]

I've played the game since 2006, let's say I've seen how the community and forums work. I've also seen the slow shift in overall design from a proper MMORPG into something like a 3rd person ARPG, instant-gratification hub game where the only challenging content is in premade raiding, or high-level mythic+. Streamlined to the point where your only proper options to customize your gameplay is choice of class, spec, and talents. That's it. Godawful.

Problem now is that after WoD, which was the MoP forums lovechild until it actually was born, Blizzard doesn't really want to listen to negativity, and I can't fault them too much.

Legion does most things right, but it rarely if ever goes all the way. They made world content worth doing again, worth repeating again, rewarding again... they've finally revamped leveling from the travesty that it was.... but it's as if Blizzard is freaking afraid of making any non-raid content lethal to the player. Hell, Blizzard seems hellbent on making sure players cannot fail at anything outside of premade group content. What kind of MMORPG is afraid of killing it's player characters?! Fostering a playerbase of whiny babies that ragequits if they wipe once or twice.

Now, the only reasons you ever die outside of a premade raid is "bullshit", DCs, fall-damage and gankers. Because everything else is a joke as soon as you've spent 10 hours over two afternoons getting gear. And no, I'm not just talking in the final patch here.

The community is cynically negative, and most of the time they're wrong. The community in the end was the reason the game shifted to this kind of design. The community caused WoD. The community shat on everything in MoP until we got 'what we wanted', where non-raid content is all an optional mess.

Or the current design which feels in many ways like a prolonged bucketlist of things you should do, because it never. EVER. challenges you as a player. I can guaran'freaking'tee you that if Blizzard did some radical rebalancing of world content mobs and elites, making them actual threats again (bring back world drops, and rare chances of worthwhile mob drops too while you're at it!), and scrapped the idea that players should get a gear reward every 20 minutes, Legion and all expansions forward will be much, much better received.

Problem is that ideas like that don't get any traction, because all people see then is "artificial prolonging of content.", they can't see further than that, just like the reluctance to the leveling changes until people realized it's actually quite fun to not oneshot your way forgetting 80% of your spellbook all the way to 110.


Now excuse me while I go solo this 100 million hp 'group elite' on Argus.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

The problem is that I've seen, first hand, that well-written, intelligent, polite but critical threads get closed and even deleted because they didn't "Foster a positive atmosphere that Blizzard seeks to maintain in its community".

When that kind of post gets that kind of treatment, what is the community supposed to think? If they can't even provide constructive criticism without risking a thread lock and delete, where are they supposed to go from there?

Do you think its possibly the replies to the post, and not the original post that caused the issue?

[Deleted]

No, people are shit all the time. Go to Youtube comments to see it. People just shitting on everything for the hell of it. Blizzards customers aren't being treated poorly.

Because youtube is somehow the bastion of everything? Yes there are people just shitting on everything, but it is the CM's job to clear them out and have a productive discussion. The problem here is that they don't cut out the toxic but feed the trolls, and not react properly on feedback.

Do you want a special pat on the back every time you make a post? Do you think its possible that much of the posting (especially on official forums) isn't even constructive in the first place? Blizzard isn't ignoring you because they don't respond to your every post.

I've never stated anything like that, there is a big difference between having a constructive conversation and being ignored, right now the community is being ignored.

As i have explained, if the CM's did a better job then there would be more constructive, and negativity can be constructive criticism, it is the lesson learned that counts.
Blizzard isn't ignoring me because they aren't responding to every post, they are ignoring everyone because they do not respond to ANY post.

[SirCowdog]

Do you think its possibly the replies to the post, and not the original post that caused the issue?

Possible? Sure. But the response from the CMs should be to nuke those comments and not the entire thread because a few trolls decided to bomb it. Even if that was the case, locking an entire thread is going to do exactly what Orynx was talking about: Create cynically negative posters. Like I said, if the community can't even make constructive criticism without risk of it getting shat upon by Blizzard, then what do they really expect us to do? If you're going to be treated like trash anyway, might as well not hold back and try to be polite in the first place.

Honestly? This problem was created more by Blizzard than anything else.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Because youtube is somehow the bastion of everything? Yes there are people just shitting on everything, but it is the CM's job to clear them out and have a productive discussion. The problem here is that they don't cut out the toxic but feed the trolls, and not react properly on feedback.





I've never stated anything like that, there is a big difference between having a constructive conversation and being ignored, right now the community is being ignored.

As i have explained, if the CM's did a better job then there would be more constructive, and negativity can be constructive criticism, it is the lesson learned that counts.
Blizzard isn't ignoring me because they aren't responding to every post, they are ignoring everyone because they do not respond to ANY post.

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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Possible? Sure. But the response from the CMs should be to nuke those comments and not the entire thread because a few trolls decided to bomb it. Even if that was the case, locking an entire thread is going to do exactly what Orynx was talking about: Create cynically negative posters. Like I said, if the community can't even make constructive criticism without risk of it getting shat upon by Blizzard, then what do they really expect us to do? If you're going to be treated like trash anyway, might as well not hold back and try to be polite in the first place.

Honestly? This problem was created more by Blizzard than anything else.

But thats the community getting those threads locked.

[Mhyroth]

That's literally the definition of his job, lol.

"He should be fired because...because...he's doing his job!"

Right. Got it.

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.

[Echocho]

I bet this is the reason the blues only posted a few times in the beginning in the classic sub forums and then went completely silent. If you receive death threats from a rabid private server community just because you encourage discussion I don't think there's much point in sticking around.