Imagine democracy in WoW!!

[Fantazma]

No.
Your example has nothing to with mine. Your initial complaints are things Blizzard had already fixed and the players cried until it was removed.

Now you're talking about xmog. I'm fairly sure you'd be voted down into oblivion if you wanted a "democratic" vote that unique PvP rewards could also be acquired by "making the PVE". In fact, that's been a consistent complaint since Legion that PvP gear was just recolors instead of the unique sets they had from Wrath - WoD.

Man, I'm sure you "capisce".

Yes, if we compare the current situation with BFA, yes, today is better. But the fact is: If (if) you want to be a 200+ ilvl quickly ... it's better to go PVE than casual PVP. I don't think this is fair to anyone who pays the game to just do PVP.
Likewise, I do not think it is fair to exclusive PVP rewards.
EVERYONE should have access to all the rewards in the game (at the same time that we would have the power to choose what kind of "fun" we would follow to have those rewards).
I think the perfection would be:
Bob, Billy and Rob own the INVENCIBLE mount!
Bob get this by doing PVP.
Billy get this by doing quests.
Rob bought it at the store.
(And yes ... if u kill Arthas u have a 1% chance of also having that horse).

[Soon-TM]

EDIT: Yes I put some new (and necessary) stuffs in original image ^^

Sign me up for holy murloc plx <3

[Kokolums]

Many pirate servers are essentially WoW democracy. Its all run by the players. The implementors immediately hand out loads of free stuff to everyone due to popular demand, and then the game is pointless and it collapses.

[Lochton]

Can't wait for the 3rd season in a row of a handful of classes being super OP because people lol'd and nuke voted that selection of classes while left the others in the dust.

[Swnem]

this

KEKW


Imagine, if they'd put major plot or systems up to vote. That's be a shitshow.

Are you saying you prefered the slime cat or a recolor of one of the caterpillar mounts you can already get in Shadowlands? How was it not the best choice? You got an ancient mount in 4 colors.

Honestly, at this point i'm pretty sure that a player vote on systems would have prevent the shitshows we currently got. Imagine... free to swap covenant/soulbind/conduit. You would have a layout for pvp/mythic+/raiding. You'd be able to use whatever ability you wanted. Have a change anytime you'd like.
How is that a shitshow compared to being stuck with a choice and having to regrind it all when a new patch changes the balance?

- - - Updated - - -

Please no, players know nothing.

This is absolute nonsense. How is it that the people who actually play the game everyday, know nothing? They spend more tine with the game than the devs. They experience how everything feels longterm. Why do you think devs ask for feedback?

Honestly most of the negative posts here read as "i have an unpopular opinion about something and if i can't have my way, no one can.". But, honestly, majority votes lead to good outcomes more often than not.

Not that the game should be run without gatekeeping. But, listening to the people playing the game is what makes a game better and more sucessful.

[Sondrelk]

Are you saying you prefered the slime cat or a recolor of one of the caterpillar mounts you can already glt in Shadowlands? How was it not the best choice? You got an ancient mount in 4 colors.

Honestly, at this point i'm pretty sure that a player vote on systems would have prevent the shitshows we currently got. Imagine... free to swap covenant/soulbind/conduit. You would have a layout for pvp/mythic+/raiding. You'd be able to use whatever ability you wanted. Have a change anytime you'd like.
How is that a shitshow compared to being stuck with a choice and having to regrind it all when a new patch changes the balance?

For many people being given a supposed important choice like covenants and then ending up with the same issues of constant swapping players have mentioned with the new talent systems would be a shitshow.

The wow playerbade isn't a homogenous mass that the developers try to spite. They are a whole bunch of people that want things that are often contradictory to eachother.

Some players think flying should be available from as early as before max level, some think it should be removed completely. Some think it should be restricted to a few specific zones, some think it should be available slightly earlier than we get it but with a complete overhaul to how it works as a mechanic.

Quite often you end up with issues where progress for some is regression for others. And then what do you do if the choice doesn't pan out and you need to change it, and how do you decide? Are you going to have votes on every topic every expansion? That would likely just end up having mechanics flipflop constantly as content people don't vote and annoyed people do.

[Soon-TM]

The end result of this would be streamers/YouTubers with high amounts of followers essentially choosing the direction of the game, which would almost certainly then favor high end M+/Raid content while casual content died never to return.

Sounds a lot like SL, just saying...

[infinitemeridian]

Democracy in WoW would equate to "What streamers / content "creators" think is good" - they have way too much influence as it is, I'd prefer not to give them even more.

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Sounds a lot like SL, just saying...

Exactly - SL is a direct result of streamers bitching about BFA / Legion. I don't like the expansion from a lore / aesthetic perspective (and it is severely lacking in interesting world content), but everything else is what Asmongold / Preach have been asking for for years.

[Kumorii]

This is absolute nonsense. How is it that the people who actually play the game everyday, know nothing? They spend more tine with the game than the devs. They experience how everything feels longterm. Why do you think devs ask for feedback?

Honestly most of the negative posts here read as "i have an unpopular opinion about something and if i can't have my way, no one can.". But, honestly, majority votes lead to good outcomes more often than not.

Not that the game should be run without gatekeeping. But, listening to the people playing the game is what makes a game better and more sucessful.

Feedback is not the same as democracy. Far from it. When I say players know nothing, within this context I mean nothing in game design. Doesn't matter if you are top player or what not, unless you apply critical thinking and analysis as of why things are the way they are and why you enjoy things on a deeper level beyond that you like it and give a small reason as of why you do. There's lots of psychology that goes into designing games. I would say there is a minority who enjoy analysis at this level.

I think best example to illustrate my point, which i've used before on this site, is Dark Souls and it's combat system. Regardless of the big hit it has become now, when Dark Souls was released, it was very niché. One of the big complaints for mainstream crowd wasn't the difficulty, it played a part of it absolutely, but that the combat was defensive and slow. One thing that contributed to this was that one of the first items you receive is a shield. Naturally everyone would equip the shield and start using it. Players tended to play passively due to "overusing" the shield, which made the combat play out vastly different than fans of the games do. They play more aggressively and uses rolls more often which makes the combat flow differently. They noticed that players who didn't enjoy the game tended to play by blocking a hit, swing, blocking a hit, swing etc etc... which is just boring. It's effective at the start and also learned by the tutorial itself.

So here we have a problem. If the feedback is "the combat is slow" what would be the most obvious way to solve this? Change the combat system, but that's a fairly big change. When in fact you can condition players by having the tutorial play out differently, maybe not give a shield at the start etc etc... a lot of these things and variables are there across all games. What players complain about when it comes to a feature merely scratches the surface of what's actually going on. Which is why feedback is valuable, but you need to understand game design as well to know WHY people feel that way, because it's not guaranteed they know themselves.

This was demonstrated in the release of Bloodborne. They removed the shield completely, well, except for the plank. Which even has the flavor text.
A crude wooden shield used by the masses who have arisen to join the hunt.
Hunters do not normally employ shields, ineffectual against the strength of the beasts as they tend to be.
Shields are nice, but not if they engender passivity."

By removing the shield, while still keeping the same sort of combat system you suddenly have more players play more aggressively. This was also enhanced by the regaining of health by being aggressive, so they doubled down on it. But beyond that you have the same combat, but the approach from players is different and thus the perception is different.

As a side note. Usually when players give a solution and they say "just do this" i think it's safe to say that they haven't thought about whatever idea they had much, nor scrutinized it in how it can affect the game in ways they didn't at first anticipate.

Been rambling on for too long though.

[Akibaboy]

Bob, Billy and Rob own the INVENCIBLE mount!
Bob get this by doing PVP.
Billy get this by doing quests.
Rob bought it at the store.

This is a self-report.

[Le Conceptuel]

Man, I'm sure you "capisce".

Yes, if we compare the current situation with BFA, yes, today is better. But the fact is: If (if) you want to be a 200+ ilvl quickly ... it's better to go PVE than casual PVP. I don't think this is fair to anyone who pays the game to just do PVP.
Likewise, I do not think it is fair to exclusive PVP rewards.
EVERYONE should have access to all the rewards in the game (at the same time that we would have the power to choose what kind of "fun" we would follow to have those rewards).
I think the perfection would be:
Bob, Billy and Rob own the INVENCIBLE mount!
Bob get this by doing PVP.
Billy get this by doing quests.
Rob bought it at the store.

This is the first time I have seen unironic store use advocated on this website. Wouldn't selling things on the store just cheapen their actual value?

[Fantazma]

This is the first time I have seen unironic store use advocated on this website. Wouldn't selling things on the store just cheapen their actual value?

Without irony .. I don't know if I understood your question. What do you mean "actual Value"?
We already have several mounts being sold in the store, right?
If a mount is added that (also) is possible to get in the game through RNG, who would it be bad for?
If you are against buying things at the game store ... just don't buy it.
If you still want to have the mount ... just go and try to farm it.
Other people have the right to do whatever they want, as long as it doesn't interfere with your game-play!
It is easy to understand: If for example I want to fly ... if I built my own plane or if I found it simpler to buy a plane ... how would that interfere with your life?
In the case of the game store ... you can say: "It's not fair. I spent hours of game-play to get this horse".
Well ... I also spent hours in real life working, to get money, and buy the same horse at the store ..!
How do we measure "actual value" now?
Ok, maybe (maybe) within the RP of the game your way of getting that horse was more "honorable". Well, you already have the achievement to prove to everyone that you got the horse by killing a boss. I believe that this solves the possible problem you would have with the game store ...

- - - Updated - - -

This is a self-report.

Rob is okay. He just bought the horse at the store. He didn't steal anyone's horse ...

[Quaade]

Could work so long as it was a restricted democracy.

Any democracy is a restricted one. The ones we have, restrict the vote to anyone 18 or older. At some point, the restriction was to be landed man.

[Azerate]

Democracy in WoW would equate to "What streamers / content "creators" think is good" - they have way too much influence as it is, I'd prefer not to give them even more.

You - and many others vastly overestimate streamers' influence over the player base and would be very surprised. There is actually quite a lot of proof to the contrary.

-Streamers usually dislike cash shop mounts, sometimes actively campaign against them, but you have lots of players who are buying them and riding them around. No one cares about their crusades.
-When we had the popular vote for the freebie mount, the mount pushed by streamers actually lost.

Most people just play and mind their own business. If they follow any creators it's only for news about the game usually, and even if it's more, they dont necessarily listen to everything they say.

And again, anyone commenting on this thread should at least acquaint themselves with how this works in OSRS. That game basically has the democractic vote on content and updates. It can be argued whether the outcome is ideal objectively, but it's certainly no trainwreck either, and OSRS is actually doing pretty good.

[Cthulhu fhtagn]

Ever heard of the saying "a camel is a horse designed by a committee"?

[Alroxas]

1 - Ok, do you swear to God that at this moment you are satisfied with all the talents of the Class of your main-char?

Trusting regular players to make such a suggestion is a bad idea. Players don't have an idea of what would make something more useful while still maintaining balance.

2 - There is a thread in this forum with thousands of posts proving that the thread "NEW CLASS" lives in our hearts right now. Frankly ... if in the next expansion they don't announce a new class, I predict a civil war. No joking. Now imagine that 75% of players today would love to see Tinker as a new class and only 5% would like to play with a Bard.

We already have 12 classes with over 60 specs to balance. Given the current raid encounter limitations of 2 tanks, 2~5 healers, rest DPS, do we really need to add more classes/specs? There's already 6 tanks specs competing for 2 slots and 6 healing specs competing for anywhere from 2~5 healing spots.

Also bard class as a support role, consider this: Hunters in Torghast (given the current powers) are basically a support class. How many hunters do you know that actually like this role? Every hunter I've talked to HATES Torghast because support role is ONLY useful in groups. And part of WoW's DNA is the option of solo play.

As for Tinker's... to be effective, you're going to need to gut engineering as a profession. Somehow I don't think that's going to go over well. Just look how warlocks reacted when Demonology was gutted for Demon Hunters.

3 - About giving a score to devs about their most recent decisions and that REALLY this vote does not become a troll show ... just as I said above ... that only votes from those who actually play the current content be taken into account about the game. I don't talk about all the content but enough. I'm not saying that we should only take End-gamers or Mythic-raiders seriously ... but votes from those who enter the game once a month, kill some wild boars in ogrimmar and leave ... they really can't be taken seriously , OK.
So ... it would be interesting to follow the vote of those who actually play the game ... and the popularity of devs in all of this.

By your own metric, then only players who do mythic raiding can vote on mythic raids similar to high M+ players. Do you really want those people determining the fate of those systems because according to your own statement, only those who "actually play the content" should be taken into account. If X player doesn't participate in Mythic Raids or High M+ (high being defined as +10 or higher), then why should they be able to determine what goes in/out of that content?

4 - In the name of everything I love .... I would REALLY LOVE to see a tab like this on the official Blizzard website. This is now incredibly necessary.
I know that when new xmogs are drawn most of the ideas put on paper go to waste and only a few (chosen by, idk, 2 or 3 people) actually appear in the game! PLZ BLIZZARD, let the players become more involved in this choice !!! My God ... Since Legion you have not managed to create a single xmog that can really please the player. Forgive me but this opinion is almost unanimous.

This is truly spoken from a person who has NO idea what it takes. So you see a great image/sketch on deviantart. But to translate that into in-game models takes a lot of work and hours. Also you do realize that armor doesn't always look "right" when you put it on different sized toons or different races. What might look good on a Orc could look silly on a Goblin or Vulpera. These things take more than just an artist rendering to become in-game assets.

5 - I like transparency in my investments and YES ... WoW is an investment for me! Don't you like transparency in your investments? Ok ...

Sure when you become an actual investor (of significance aka owning at least 5% of stock) of Activision-Blizzard stock then you can have that transparency. Currently you're not an investor but a customer and there's a difference.

[Fantazma]

Trusting regular players to make such a suggestion is a bad idea. Players don't have an idea of what would make something more useful while still maintaining balance.

Ok, I respect your opinion. And it seems to be a majority opinion here. And the majority ... have to be respected, right?

We already have 12 classes with over 60 specs to balance.

If you think seriously about that we only have 3 very different types of "class" (DPS, Healers, Tanks) and yet ... each one with a well-defined function and therefore easy to balance. Everything else is just a very well made "illusion" that makes us think that there is a "super difference" between melee damage and ranged damade, shadow damage and holy damage ... etc.
Adding one or two or ten more classes ... it would just be a problem "Blizzard wants to do" or "Blizzard doesn't want to do" ... Simple as that.

your own metric, then only players who do mythic raiding can vote on mythic raids similar to high M+ players.

Dude, I said exactly the opposite. I said that the votes that Blizzard should take seriously would be those of "players who play enough" to be taken seriously. This excludes players who log in once a month just to see if his toon is still breathing ... and "enough" does not mean that you have to be a 5 star mythic-raider for Blizzard to make your vote valid (although while Ion works as a boss at Blizzard ... it will be very difficult for Blizzard to hear players who are not mythic-raiders ..)

is truly spoken from a person who has NO idea what it takes. So you see a great image/sketch on deviantart. But to translate that into in-game models takes a lot of work and hours. Also you do realize that armor doesn't always look "right" when you put it on different sized toons or different races. What might look good on a Orc could look silly on a Goblin or Vulpera. These things take more than just an artist rendering to become in-game assets.

Your opinion about xmogs is very similar to your opinion about new classes. For some reason you believe that Blizzard is unable to make nice Xmogs because there is, idk, a kind of impossible algorithm or "Da vinci code" that they would have to go over for this to happen.
Dude, this is not the way it is. You are underestimating Blizzard's ability to do something pleasant for us players.

Sure when you become an actual investor (of significance aka owning at least 5% of stock) of Activision-Blizzard stock then you can have that transparency. Currently you're not an investor but a customer and there's a difference.

Forgive me, english is not my first lenguage but .. I understand as "investor" anyone who "invested" something somewhere. If I invest my time (the hours I play) and REAL money (my sub) then ... I am an investor.
(I really don't know if the English word "investor" is only used for that guy who works on wall street ...! Forgive me for that).

[Swnem]

For many people being given a supposed important choice like covenants and then ending up with the same issues of constant swapping players have mentioned with the new talent systems would be a shitshow.

The wow playerbade isn't a homogenous mass that the developers try to spite. They are a whole bunch of people that want things that are often contradictory to eachother.

Some players think flying should be available from as early as before max level, some think it should be removed completely. Some think it should be restricted to a few specific zones, some think it should be available slightly earlier than we get it but with a complete overhaul to how it works as a mechanic.

Quite often you end up with issues where progress for some is regression for others. And then what do you do if the choice doesn't pan out and you need to change it, and how do you decide? Are you going to have votes on every topic every expansion? That would likely just end up having mechanics flipflop constantly as content people don't vote and annoyed people do.

I should clarify i am not agreeing with what the OP caracterizes. Game development takes time. It would be impossible to flip flop.
My point was simply towards those saying that players don't know anything. I think that is a wrong idea. We learned much from this expansion and how what we think people do and what they actually do are not that different. Casual players are not so different from hardcore ones. We saw that from how they chose their covenants.
Players are not as stupid as some like to think and most of them do know what would make the game better (exceptions exist, obviously, but we learned they are a vocal minority)
BUT, that does not mean i think the game should be designed in democracy polls. My point is that player feedback is important and such polls would be important feedback. But, developers should ultimately be in charge of decisions, not players.

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Feedback is not the same as democracy. Far from it. When I say players know nothing, within this context I mean nothing in game design. Doesn't matter if you are top player or what not, unless you apply critical thinking and analysis as of why things are the way they are and why you enjoy things on a deeper level beyond that you like it and give a small reason as of why you do. There's lots of psychology that goes into designing games. I would say there is a minority who enjoy analysis at this level.

I think best example to illustrate my point, which i've used before on this site, is Dark Souls and it's combat system. Regardless of the big hit it has become now, when Dark Souls was released, it was very niché. One of the big complaints for mainstream crowd wasn't the difficulty, it played a part of it absolutely, but that the combat was defensive and slow. One thing that contributed to this was that one of the first items you receive is a shield. Naturally everyone would equip the shield and start using it. Players tended to play passively due to "overusing" the shield, which made the combat play out vastly different than fans of the games do. They play more aggressively and uses rolls more often which makes the combat flow differently. They noticed that players who didn't enjoy the game tended to play by blocking a hit, swing, blocking a hit, swing etc etc... which is just boring. It's effective at the start and also learned by the tutorial itself.

So here we have a problem. If the feedback is "the combat is slow" what would be the most obvious way to solve this? Change the combat system, but that's a fairly big change. When in fact you can condition players by having the tutorial play out differently, maybe not give a shield at the start etc etc... a lot of these things and variables are there across all games. What players complain about when it comes to a feature merely scratches the surface of what's actually going on. Which is why feedback is valuable, but you need to understand game design as well to know WHY people feel that way, because it's not guaranteed they know themselves.

This was demonstrated in the release of Bloodborne. They removed the shield completely, well, except for the plank. Which even has the flavor text.
A crude wooden shield used by the masses who have arisen to join the hunt.
Hunters do not normally employ shields, ineffectual against the strength of the beasts as they tend to be.
Shields are nice, but not if they engender passivity."

By removing the shield, while still keeping the same sort of combat system you suddenly have more players play more aggressively. This was also enhanced by the regaining of health by being aggressive, so they doubled down on it. But beyond that you have the same combat, but the approach from players is different and thus the perception is different.

As a side note. Usually when players give a solution and they say "just do this" i think it's safe to say that they haven't thought about whatever idea they had much, nor scrutinized it in how it can affect the game in ways they didn't at first anticipate.

Been rambling on for too long though.

I'm not sure the example applies because they are different games with different audiences.
A souls games you buy, play and leave your impressions. The impressions seem based on the early game and tbh, that is important feedback. It raises the question of why have the shield in the tutorial if it's an end game trap.

An MMORPG is a live service. If a player doesn't like the service they leave and they really wouldn't be able to leave feedback. The official forums require you to be subbed. I would assume official polls would be only on official channels.
The players that play an mmo are more involved and play the game far more, but you also need to understand that there will always be people that don't think things through. The question is how representative they are.

I direct you also to my above post to clarify that i am not saying it should be designed as a democracy but rather that such information would be valuable feedback.
The majority of wow players is not as clueless as you think. Their feedback is useful.
Also that feedback could help nudge the game in better ways. Because the players told the devs that tying covenant to player power was a bad idea. If there was a poll at large of the community with say 85% saying that, the message would have more weight than just a youtuber saying it and the devs might have relented.
The players know a lot. They play this game for hundreads of hours. The devs do not. Not for long. They play the content, but they aren't engaging with the systems daily. Sometimes they do need a push in the right direction. I think such polls could help without necessarely being binding.

[Kumorii]

I'm not sure the example applies because they are different games with different audiences.
A souls games you buy, play and leave your impressions. The impressions seem based on the early game and tbh, that is important feedback. It raises the question of why have the shield in the tutorial if it's an end game trap.

An MMORPG is a live service. If a player doesn't like the service they leave and they really wouldn't be able to leave feedback. The official forums require you to be subbed. I would assume official polls would be only on official channels.
The players that play an mmo are more involved and play the game far more, but you also need to understand that there will always be people that don't think things through. The question is how representative they are.

I direct you also to my above post to clarify that i am not saying it should be designed as a democracy but rather that such information would be valuable feedback.
The majority of wow players is not as clueless as you think. Their feedback is useful.
Also that feedback could help nudge the game in better ways. Because the players told the devs that tying covenant to player power was a bad idea. If there was a poll at large of the community with say 85% saying that, the message would have more weight than just a youtuber saying it and the devs might have relented.
The players know a lot. They play this game for hundreads of hours. The devs do not. Not for long. They play the content, but they aren't engaging with the systems daily. Sometimes they do need a push in the right direction. I think such polls could help without necessarely being binding.

You talk about feedback, which I never contested... I even started it out with separating feedback from democracy because they aren't the same. I am with you that feedback is important, never claimed otherwise...You are arguing a point I didn't make.

[Lane]

That's way more input than I want the average player to have. I've often thought I would like in game surveys since people frequently say the forums are 1% of the playerbase and don't reflect how the majority of players feel. Well, let's find out then. They need to be in game though or it's just the same 1%ers doing the survey. Also, Blizzard metrics won't ever calculate how well-liked a feature is, especially if that feature is in any way ingrained into progress where people feel compelled to do things they hate.