WoW Desperately Needs Some Kind of a Roundtable Between Devs and Players

[deenman]

I can't say I have any faith in the developers vision since legions ap system. Still to each their own. I kind of hope wow gets turned over to an entirely new team these days.

agree,its rly sad seeing so many people look to legion favorably,when it by far had the most degenerate gameplay aspects,insane rng the likes we have never seen with legenderies and +70 ilvl titanforge,extreme infinite power ap grinds,crazy class imbalance specialy outdoors etc etc

[Edward Wu]

Devs usually don't want to be controlled by players, because profit =/= better game. Another factor is - money. Example? Player housing. It's good for players, but would be too expensive to implement. So it's not worth development resources.

I agree, If I'm insinuating that the devs need to just give up and acquiesce to all player demands that was not my intention at all.

On the contrary, I think the proper way for devs to treat players is like how a parent treats their child. Protective, but a clear air of authority and superiority present, however the relationship between the two is mutually beneficial.

I just think The WoW team needs more transparency in general and needs to be more in tune with overall community desires. Right now they are trending in the direction of being too out-of-touch. Letting the devs completely take the reigns can come later after they have soothed the raging hate boner for the game.

[Kokolums]

WoW definitely does NOT need a roundtable between devs and players. That creates a negative feedback loop where the game keeps focusing down on a smaller and smaller subset of the potential playerbase until everyone hates the game.

If you do this, it needs to be a roundtable between devs, current players, and players who quit.

[Crimson Spears]

agree,its rly sad seeing so many people look to legion favorably,when it by far had the most degenerate gameplay aspects,insane rng the likes we have never seen with legenderies and +70 ilvl titanforge,extreme infinite power ap grinds,crazy class imbalance specialy outdoors etc etc

Things will change drastically soon. In what direction I have no idea but you can't keep taking terrible hits constantly. I would be very surprised to see the next expansion being similar but who knows times will tell.

[Kokolums]

I don't mean bringing in toxic people like Asmongold or Bellular

Actually, MMOC at this point is like 1000x times more toxic than either of them. This forum has driven away most players and is in serious danger of getting closed down. Almost no-one posts here and many of those that do so are very very VERY toxic.

[Edward Wu]

If you do this, it needs to be a roundtable between devs, current players, and players who quit.

I'm game.

Bring in as diverse a cast of players for feedback as possible. Bring like 12 dudes in total and have them sit down with 5-6 devs.

Actually, one thing they could do that would probably be really helpful for them is bring a cast of like 1000 random people who used to play WoW, give them a free 1-month sub, and direct them to start playing the game again and give feedback regularly on what they like and do not like, and then give them bnet balance or something for their time

[XDurionX]

God no. Players are absolutely unable to provide professional feedback and objective, construcitve criticism.

[LedZeppelin]

worst zoom call ever

[Lolites]

I wouldn't like the game anymore if all the changes the playerbase asked for were implemented.

well implementing all would be impossible as some are mutualy exclusive...
but yeah, implementing most would csrew up the game pretty badly

[Gourbaak]

blizzard is already talking to players, but players who know how to be constructive, not the average player here or in other toxic community like reddit or the official forums or whatever who can't do anything else than shitting on the game or having extremely stupid idea to make the game "better"

[Glorious Leader]

thats the oposite of what the game needs,keep the players shity opinions as far away from the devs ears as posible,its what got us in to messes in the first place

this is funny. The lead devs were also players at one point and they have shitty opinions as well.

[Jastall]

come one like... I mean its fair enough to question everything but this one is really not a surprising observation. Even if its not true for you, look basically everywhere an you will see that the majority agrees with this statement.

The people posting on forums and reddit are so far from the majority of the total audience it's not even funny, and I wouldn't trust a moshpit of angry and biased forumites to design a Flash game, let alone a juggernaut MMO with a very, very varied target audience that they'll of course disregard because the vast majority of fan feedback is a poorly disguised "appeal to ME instead of THEM" affair.

[Mentacyde]

lmao most players arent shareholders

[Dwimmerlaik]

Wouldn't matter. The current development team would take a ton of notes and then thank the players for their input, then tell them politely that they know better than they do.

[Mojo03]

Honestly, if they just communicated more, interacted with community, and were more transparent about the process it'd go a long way and people would be more forgiving of the short comings. It's blatantly obvious they've been growing more and more out of touch the last few years.

Ghostcrawler was remarkably better at this that any other dev. I think the health of the game and community would be remarkably more healthy if Blizzard had 2-3 devs like that. Yes, he was a bit hated in the day, but I think that's mostly because he was seen as the representative for the entire company by the community because he was the only one who ever really communicated with them.

Ashes of Creation does a monthly 90 minute YouTube update on the state of the game where 3 devs sit down and discuss whats been going on the last month and give updates/show new stuff. I think this is the future and what I think people want and there is no reason Blizzard cant do something similar or better with all their resources.

[Lochton]

lmao most players arent shareholders

Man, if they would only listen to shareholders for that matter. I'm a shareholder of meager 20 shares in ATVI. It would actually be cool if players invested in what they loved, and if Blizzard Entertainment took notice to the little shareholders and their voices, but they don't, since Activision will shadow that part..

[Aurora]

WoW needs developers with a vision for their game design and the courage to implement it. Not design by committee through feedback from a community pulling them in a million different directions.

If players feel like the game and its developers are eternally disappointing to them then they should probably play a different game. Logging in every day to feel misery and annoyance while blaming developers for it is an unhealthy relationship.

It'd be like going to a restaurant that serves increasingly terrible food every day in the hope that one day they fire the chef and change their menu.

[Lochton]

Honestly, if they just communicated more, interacted with community, and were more transparent about the process it'd go a long way and people would be more forgiving of the short comings. It's blatantly obvious they've been growing more and more out of touch the last few years.

Ghostcrawler was remarkably better at this that any other dev. I think the health of the game and community would be remarkably more healthy if Blizzard had 2-3 devs like that. Yes, he was a bit hated in the day, but I think that's mostly because he was seen as the representative for the entire company by the community because he was the only one who ever really communicated with them.

The man got more flack than he deserved, honestly.

Ashes of Creation does a monthly 90 minute YouTube update on the state of the game where 3 devs sit down and discuss whats been going on the last month and give updates/show new stuff. I think this is the future and what I think people want and there is no reason Blizzard cant do something similar or better with all their resources.

ArcheAge started out doing such too (not sure if they still do, the YouTube algorithm isn't always fair on channels anymore).

[Thelxi]

They are players themselves and know damn well how you and everyone else feels about everything. More than that, they have a robust feedback system in place with people being paid to feed them compiled and statistically analyzed feedback about whatever they need. They know exactly what everyone wants, what their limits are, what entices them, what makes them spend money etc. They have years of experience and data at their fingertips. Years.

What's relevant is pressuring them to change direction, but you have to understand the current direction first.

[Echo of Soul]

No the devs should cut all communication with the players and design the game that they want. We are awful game designers and the more they listen to us the more the game suffers.