Blizzard takes advantage of us way too much.

[BraveNewWorld]

I've been playing exclusively on beta for the past weeks, because there is nothing else to do for me in BFA. But I'm not reporting anything, I'm just playing as if it was live. Even after 15+ years of not skipping one month, I had to enter giveaways to be able to access Shadowlands beta. Watching Johnny get in after quitting a month into BFA was quite annoying. They could have just given access to anyone who had pre-ordered. My feedback was apparently not important to them so I won't give it.

I'm keeping a list of bugs (some even exploits) that I plan on using for my own advantage.

[Aucald]

And Blizz thanks you for your loyal support of their exploitive practices. Just as all major corporations do. They very much rely on fans who will rationalize any and all problems as being with disloyal fans.

Now is an opportunity to start thinking through what is going on here. Why is Blizz "offering" to let you test? Out of the kindness of their hearts? (If you think this, please DM me as I have some wonderful bridges for sale around the US)

No, Blizz "offers" this for two major reasons. It lets them test a product without having to hire more people, which means more profits and, thus, more bonuses for senior management. The other reason is that it becomes a hype / advertising tool.

So, while you may enjoy being unpaid labor, realize that other people understand that it is a scam and are appropriately pushing back on it.

This strikes me as way too cynical and jaded in regard to Beta testing. I know it's the "in" thing to be aware that corporations are not our friends and so forth, but you still shouldn't disregard the human element behind the creation of games and software in general. People take considerable pride in their work, and they want it to be enjoyed or praised alongside the profit motive - you act as if people can't have multiple goals when it comes to a goal, as if it's all one thing or all another, when the truth is that it's never so simple or binary. I develop software for a living myself, albeit not games - mostly automation systems and targeted enterprise apps. But I use Beta testing myself with a current customer base both so they can see the software as its being made, to show transparency, request feedback, and generally get buy-in from them on the user level.

Treating the Beta testing of a video game as "unpaid labor" just seems like a silly take, to me - Beta testing is generally fun or at least engaging, and you get to see content in the raw. It can hardly be a scam if it's entirely optional and voluntary on your part, as well as to your mutual benefit if you plan on playing the game being tested (and sometimes even if you don't, as the Beta experience can help inform your purchasing decision regardless). The basic takeaway is that if you have little to no interest in the thing being tested, well, don't volunteer your time to test it. If you have some kind of grudge against the developer then don't give them your time or feedback either. If your time is just manifestly too important to valuable to bother, well, it's totally voluntary so just don't volunteer yourself. If you actively want the game to fail, then not Beta testing is the best way to do that. Otherwise, do it if you want to and have time to do so - pretty simple equation.

[callipygoustp]

Holy shit, the narcisism is real. Maybe they just did not like your feedback?

As I said to someone else who misinterpreted my post:

You think this is about my feedback? If so, re-read my posts.

No narcissism at all.

WoD had huge potential. The issue was that they tried to shift to a 1yr expansion cycle which just did not work.

Nice strawman.

Look just because my feedback is contructive and meaningful, does not mean it should be listened to. What players want =\= what players need.

Of course. Only an idiot would think otherwise.

[ClassicPeon]

This strikes me as way too cynical and jaded in regard to Beta testing. I know it's the "in" thing to be aware that corporations are not our friends and so forth, but you still shouldn't disregard the human element behind the creation of games and software in general. People take considerable pride in their work, and they want it to be enjoyed or praised alongside the profit motive - you act as if people can't have multiple goals when it comes to a goal, as if it's all one thing or all another, when the truth is that it's never so simple or binary. I develop software for a living myself, albeit not games - mostly automation systems and targeted enterprise apps. But I use Beta testing myself with a current customer base both so they can see the software as its being made, to show transparency, request feedback, and generally get buy-in from them on the user level.

Treating the Beta testing of a video game as "unpaid labor" just seems like a silly take, to me - Beta testing is generally fun or at least engaging, and you get to see content in the raw. It can hardly be a scam if it's entirely optional and voluntary on your part, as well as to your mutual benefit if you plan on playing the game being tested (and sometimes even if you don't, as the Beta experience can help inform your purchasing decision regardless). The basic takeaway is that if you have little to no interest in the thing being tested, well, don't volunteer your time to test it. If you have some kind of grudge against the developer then don't give them your time or feedback either. If your time is just manifestly too important to valuable to bother, well, it's totally voluntary so just don't volunteer yourself. If you actively want the game to fail, then not Beta testing is the best way to do that. Otherwise, do it if you want to and have time to do so - pretty simple equation.

"Would you like to try out the beta for our new game while also offering us valuable feedback?"

You want me to play your game for free before everyone else?

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[scelero]

If you have to start your post with "I do apologize if this comes off as a bit of a rant"

You already know what you're about to do. It's the same as someone saying 'no disrespect, but' or 'don't mean to throw you under the bus'

How about this, STAND YOUR GROUND and OWN your words. Forget what OTHER PEOPLE think about how they sound to them. Ignore those people and listen to those that hear what you're saying. Skip all the prefaces and warning statements. Just get to the core of what it is you want to talk about.

It's getting old people trying to cater their words around people who don't want to hear you talk in the first place.

[MageInACan]

Oh, you came to the wrong mouth-breather forum, my friend. You won't find civil discussion from these shillbos.

[TigTone]

Oh, you came to the wrong mouth-breather forum, my friend. You won't find civil discussion from these shillbos.

Ohh the irony.

[Stormbreed]

I do apologize if this comes off as a bit of a rant but I do want to hear what you guys have to say I will try and keep it pretty level though.

As the most recent blue post is blizzard seeking our assistance in order to test their systems I think we should reflect on why we should or shouldn't give them FREE assistance.

I'm going to start off with; In no way shape or form am I willing to give them free help when I consistently feel used by them as an organization. They have been anything but transparent with shadow lands as of now, i mean WE DO NOT EVEN HAVE A PREPATCH DATE. It truly blows my mind that a company will come to the forums to request assistance despite having fed us lies about shadow lands from start to finish, the most glaring in this instance being that they said the SL prepatch was going to be a long one, now we are set for this to be the shortest to date.

On top of this, I do not understand (and really would like some insight from the people who have done this) why we would want to do it another example being. When they asked us for class feedback from the beta and the people who poured countless hours into play testing every aspect of their class was left waiting up to 4 months on a response. These wearnt just Class bad fix numbers responses either, they're where abilities and passives not even registering, sadly though it seems a lot of the bugs and class issues are still rampant effectively wasting all of those peoples time.

Why is it that we cannot at least receive something in game for effectively doing blizzards job for them by supplying them with a surplus of needed info with a days notice. The lack of communication is severely lacking if just out right non existent, as of now I do not intend on logging into the PTR tomorrow.

EDIT #1: This is a key point in why I think we shouldn't and I need to make it clear up here. Your information as a consumer is worth far more than your $15 a month to these companies. Whenever you help them knowingly or unknowingly you are putting them into a better position at no cost to create a new product and turn around to sell it to you at full price. Being the person who helps in the betas, or the stress tests, or whatever free work you do for blizzard should be incentivized for you. You are making them money, thats the cut and dry of it, every bit of data you give them for free helps them make more money. The amount in which they rely on us for free information I find really disgusting, I know some will call me entitled by real world example here:

-As a teen I used to go focus groups to "test" and give feed back on products from soda to toys, and it would only pay me like 40 bucks for the 2-3 hours i was there but it was enough for me to want to do it. All blizzard does is say "thanks for the help" in a forum post and goes dark on us for another month or two.

The date was given to us 5 days before BFA pre patch, don't be scared.

[Aucald]

"Would you like to try out the beta for our new game while also offering us valuable feedback?"

You want me to play your game for free before everyone else?

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I do think it's a Beta testers duty (for lack of a better term) to actually test the game and provide feedback as opposed to acting like a lost and starstruck tourist - or complaining ceaselessly about how the game is broken and doesn't work right (I can't begin to relate how often I see that behavior). But basically, yes. Beta testing is generally a fun time for all involved, and I've had a lot of positive experiences doing it for a wide variety of games, Blizzard and otherwise.

[SniperCT]

Do... do people not realize that it is quite literally impossible to fully simulate the live experience without opening up the servers to as many people as possible?

Like some companies have talked about this, how players are so unpredictable that they'll find bugs that none of their QA testers would have found in a million years of testing. (stuff like 'doing x action during y while z is happening causes the game to crash). You can't hire for that. Stress testing and betas are the closest thing to just releasing to the public as they can get away with without releasing to the public. You can't possibly hire enough people do replicate that, and if you tried you'd lose money on the box sales of the expansion. You'd go out of business and then we wouldn't have a game.

They're not taking advantage of us. This has been something that's been done since.... hell I was in the alpha and beta for earth and beyond, I remember open beta for SWG and what a cluster that was. I've beta tested (like legit beta and not open beta) so many games over the years.

And I have fun (I tend to focus on certain areas of feedback).

And I don't get a reward other than to say 'i've been playing since alpha/beta' or something. And that's okay. Because I had fun.

Hell, you don't even have to pay blizzard for the PTR, you can be unsubbed and still participate on the PTR.

[Zig Zug]

I see a lot of you saying that I sound like I am entitled to something? Do you folks not understand how valuable this information is for them? Like thousands and thousands of dollars would be spent trying to recreate the experience on their end when instead the go to the forums and ask you all to do it for them. In the digital age your data is worth far more than you guys seem to realize, and if a company wants to have access to it why should they get it for free?

I'd prefer a solution that involves the end user feedback.

That way, they don't have to pay more people.

That way, the testing process is more thorough and far reaching.

That way, they can focus on changes that people actually vocalize, rather than infer.

That way, they can keep the subscription price the same for more than a decade.

That way, the development process is much more transparent.

We get it, #YangGang and such, but barking up the wrong tree here.

[Lenarific]

i love reading the blizzard shills and the normal folks responses the shills attack and the normal folks say stuff that makes sense... The guy does have a point and so do the folks that disagree with him... Blizzard has for years been progressively moving towards total douchebagery and i dont think the guy is wrong for wanting compensation but i myself could give 0 fucks i wont stress test anything and if i haven't used my game time i wouldn't resub but now because of my addiction to WoW and my toons i preordered SL and regret that choice everyday... Now i watch the forums meltdown with a small smile of satisfaction because actiblizzard will one day fail..

[SniperCT]

That way, they can keep the subscription price the same for more than a decade.

This is a good point, if the sub price had kept up with inflation it would be almost $21 dollars for a monthly sub by now.

- - - Updated - - -

OOOOOF
literally came out just over a year ago, and i thought wildstar not making it to 5 years was bad.

Still trying to figure out where Wildstar went wrong. It was a beautiful, colorful game, with an interesting premise and fun classes (plus double jump! the movement in that game was stellar), but it just never.... HOOKED me. It also felt a little too much of a slog to level so that may have been part of the problem, at least in my case.

[Wildpantz]

They actually trying to make the game better and you complain lol

[october breeze]

I’m sorry but how does Blizzard take my feedback and abuse it? Like I said “Hey Blizz I love pet battles!” And they were like “ABUSE HIM! REMOVE PET BATTLES!!!!!!!!”?

Simply by not caring for customers being their highest priority, but rather than increasing MAUs.

[TheLucky1]

Aucald has pretty much a /thread response to this already but to hammer this home:

Op you are reasonable if WoW is a simple product that you consume and then throw away for you, if it is just a little bit more, like a hobby or something, you would probably understand why most of us like to "beta-test".

And before someone calls me/thinks i am a shill: the Bfa beta for example helped me in the egoistical decision to look out for other games or evening activities for the coming months.... not something i'd say blizz profited from.

[Tesshin83]

You think this is about my feedback? If so, re-read my posts.

Ok let me rephrase:

"You and some other peoples feedback"

[callipygoustp]

Ok let me rephrase:

"You and some other peoples feedback"

Of course Blizzard isn't going to listen to all feedback. I'm not, in any way shape or form, attempting to establish that notion. And again I say: you're misreading my post.

[ClassicPeon]

This is a good point, if the sub price had kept up with inflation it would be almost $21 dollars for a monthly sub by now.

- - - Updated - - -



Still trying to figure out where Wildstar went wrong. It was a beautiful, colorful game, with an interesting premise and fun classes (plus double jump! the movement in that game was stellar), but it just never.... HOOKED me. It also felt a little too much of a slog to level so that may have been part of the problem, at least in my case.

I was thinking over this for quite a while aswell. Possibly its was the kawai stuff + it being more tech centered then medieval.

As for the first argument wow is moving in a dangerous direction atm. Vulperas is a step too close imo.

- - - Updated - - -

Of course Blizzard isn't going to listen to all feedback. I'm not, in any way shape or form, attempting to establish that notion. And again I say: you're misreading my post.

Blizzard does have a genuine problem with their slow and lackluster communication with the community in times like this.
Ideally a few people where hired simply to communicate between the devs and the players. In this case i dont mean the CM's. I have no fucking clue what they do daily but their communication between players and devs cant be more then around 5 minutes of work every day.
I know people say lore works his butt off. I choose to believe that. But he has to be doing something outside of communicating between devs and players.

Communication isnt a one way street. Its not enough to ask for feedback and then communicate back once in 4 months.

That being said when people get together on forums and form opinions that easily translates into an echochamber and people then get the idea that "everyone wants this". They then communicate that to blizzard in some way and get angered when it dosnt happen because clearly "everyone wanted this". <- turns out, most didnt want that. They just wherent as vocal/vocal in the places you saw.

[callipygoustp]

Blizzard does have a genuine problem with their slow and lackluster communication with the community in times like this.
Ideally a few people where hired simply to communicate between the devs and the players. In this case i dont mean the CM's. I have no fucking clue what they do daily but their communication between players and devs cant be more then around 5 minutes of work every day.
I know people say lore works his butt off. I choose to believe that. But he has to be doing something outside of communicating between devs and players.

Communication isnt a one way street. Its not enough to ask for feedback and then communicate back once in 4 months.

So true, the bold.

That being said when people get together on forums and form opinions that easily translates into an echochamber and people then get the idea that "everyone wants this". They then communicate that to blizzard in some way and get angered when it dosnt happen because clearly "everyone wanted this". <- turns out, most didnt want that. They just wherent as vocal/vocal in the places you saw.

You say the above as if you think its not obvious. Regardless, not sure what this has to do with what I said anyway. Maybe you forgot to quote someone else.