So is the Wow community council dead?

[Candlewick]

How do you gauge whether feedback was accepted by devs? If the devs do not immediately halt their project and cede the feedback immediately does that mean the feedback was "rejected"?

Usually they just say so directly or did when the forums where hidden. They expressed openly multiple times they knew pvpers and raiders would hate covenants and wrote them off...

Then they remembered about a week after launch " o yeah we got rid of the old talent trees because players all ran identical builds....shit".

I don't think blizzard should use open forums for feedback but ignoring the players who understand the game better then they do is a massive mistake.

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Does not some of this feedback end up in future patches? Feedback is fine but the great majority of the unending bitching I see is that it wasn't changed immediately for launch. If true then it's misleading to say they "absolutely did not accept it anywhere."

Does anyone expect them to really pull major features from an expansion on their say-so? Do they expect launch to be delayed for months while they sort through 15 different opinions, often wildly contradictory, about major features? Come on....

They really shouldnt announce features until they are tested then. Even the ones they forced through like conduits were needed heavily into being bland choices and chores. If they can't be sure something shoukd be a hit...test first announce after.

[Schizoide]

A lot of the design choices in covenants were excellent. The rewards are all cosmetic and you can basically ignore them. The soulbinds are reasonably well-balanced across covenants. Not perfectly, but ain't nothing perfect.

Where they messed up is in the covenant combat abilities, restricting players from switching between covenants, and making anima hilariously scarce in patch 9.0, so clueful players basically figured they would give out a ton more anima later on and skipped those systems entirely. I for one didn't have my covenant upgraded past tier 1 until patch 9.1 came out.

The drawback of using open forums is the devs need to very carefully watch what they say. They can't speak freely, which they did on occasion do in the private ones-- but if they aren't listening to feedback anyway, who cares? In open forums, we know what the people on the council are putting forward.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

I believe they are genuinely interested in hearing about stuff people don't like but they would like to have more info than "TORGHAST SUCKS", etc. If they're smart they will encourage everyone who has issues with any part of the game to explain what and importantly why. The level of discourse on their own forums is generally useless for this, never mind fan sites like this one which apparently is full of bitter-enders who can't let go of the game.

It's 100% non-intuitive that they would go to the trouble of setting this up simply to have everyone praise them for everything. They don't need to do that.

That doesn't mean they will be changing a lot of things but it makes sense to try and get more useful feedback than "X is great" or "X is terrible" with zero explanation of why they think that.

But, didn't they already have multiple iterations of that? You can scoff at all the bitter people here or on the official forums or elsewhere, or even on exit polls when people cancel their subs, but they get plenty of good data from that too. Surely you've seen all the people speak out about how they were treated in the secret councils, right?

And really, your reply to my post is that a huge US capitalist company would never do something just for PR and praise? That idea is naive, and as you said, non-intuitive. This whole thing will cost them little time and money. If nothing positive comes of it, they can shrug and say they tried. Its basically a win-win for them, but we can't actually prove its just a PR stunt, sort of like how every year in the US close to Pride Month, companies will change their logos and things to rainbow designs and then never actually do anything. Its disingenuous. I remember this last year or two years ago, Bethesda had changed their Twitter icons to rainbows for only specific countries, excluding Bethesda-Russia or the Bethesda-Middle East. Like clearly they don't at all care about the cause if they are being two-faced about it.

Unfortunately to your point, Blizzard just doing have the pattern of positive behaviors to really get the benefit of the doubt with a large chunk of people, and that only if you want to consider their prior behavior on these exact types of councils.

Oh yeah, lets not forget - "you think you do, but you don't" -Blizzard Entertainment

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I'm on the council and have talked with several members outside of the forums and the ones I've talked to definitely have gripes with some of the choices Blizzard made or are making. I'm obviously not going to get into any details or name any names as these were private conversations, but if anyone actually decides to read the council forums there's already quite a bit of it, just in a constructive manner.

I don't think this excludes anyone from being a yes man.

[FuxieDK]

They should have got the opinions from the people who stopped playing.

Oh joy.. That would ensure flying from day 1 in every expansion

We all know that, lack of flying and then a huge delay in flying after they reintroduced it, was the primary reason, why missions left during WoD.

[WowIsDead64]

Oh joy.. That would ensure flying from day 1 in every expansion

We all know that, lack of flying and then a huge delay in flying after they reintroduced it, was the primary reason, why missions left during WoD.

Yeah, I don't see anybody representing casual players in this council. Nobody rises questions about simple fact, that Blizzard have been following "Game isn't challenging enough" demands from hardcore players for several recent xpacks, while completely ignoring feedback from casual players, that leaded to game becoming much more hardcore, than it was back in it's golden era. It's not big noticeable thing, that is easy to spot, that makes this game much more hardcore. That's why hardcore players usually say something "What are you talking about? Game is the easiest now". It's many small details. Like casters, having 3 equally deadly casts without school block now, instead of having just one or two with school block, like it was in the past. Way too high base difficulty. Way too weak/slow catch-ups. Annoying and tedious design. Etc.

Overall there just 3 types of content now:
1) Main content - challenging group content. It isn't casual content by definition.
2) Challenging solo content. Somebody at Blizzard assumes, that if content is solo-friendly - then it can only be challenging. More likely - is should be challenging just for the sake of being challenging, i.e. higher challenge isn't properly rewarded.
3) So called "casual" content, that can only be about exceeding grind, that automatically makes it alt-unfriendly.

Problem is - none of this content is truly casual/alt-friendly.

[rrayy]

They even ignore reported bugs for entire alpha and beta and launch expac with them. They dont read shit, unless they see the population drop in anomalous ways. I know to all you clowns you think they disagree and then backtrack when they finally do what you want 12 months later, but the truth is they finish their game and let it sit, they dont read shit and dont change shit unless theres problem months later and they have no other choices. The data gathering and analyzing required to make any Testing and community driven feedback cost too much manpower, all they do is the performativr side you think they give a shit.

Again that ism't what the word "ignore " means. You have no clue what the code looks like or what it takes to fix things because if you did, you would know that in many cases, fixing one thing can break a dozen others. Thy actually have to go through the code to see what is causing the bug and then figure out how to fix it without breaking others thing, It's almost never cut and dry. All you are doing is making baseless accusations because they don't give into your complaints and solely cater the game to you all the time. They don't ignore ANYTHING.

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Oh yeah, lets not forget - "you think you do, but you don't" -Blizzard Entertainment

.

How many years ago was that? The guy who said it isn't even with the company anymore and stopped working on the actual game well before he left.. People need to let this go.

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Does not some of this feedback end up in future patches? Feedback is fine but the great majority of the unending bitching I see is that it wasn't changed immediately for launch. If true then it's misleading to say they "absolutely did not accept it anywhere."

Does anyone expect them to really pull major features from an expansion on their say-so? Do they expect launch to be delayed for months while they sort through 15 different opinions, often wildly contradictory, about major features? Come on....

Yes. There are players here who expect Blizzard to immediately grant their every wish and address every complaint to their liking with a snap of a finger. These players expect to be given everything they want and that the game should be solely catered to them as they are the one ones who matter.

[Lahis]

That would do it.

I'm sure you never said anything stupid 15 years ago.

[Therougetitan]

I'm sure you never said anything stupid 15 years ago.

You know what is more stupid than saying the N word regularly years ago or not? Admitting it publicly on a stream. Zero brain cells.

[Schizoide]

I said and did lots of stupid stuff 15 years ago, but none of it was out of character. I smoked cigarettes, drank too much, and pirated videogames.

I never said the N word, hit a woman, roofied someone's drink, tortured an animal, or went down on a dude. Not to imply being gay is a negative or comparable to the others, the point is all those things simply aren't in my nature, they aren't what I'm about. It would never even cross my mind to do them.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I said and did lots of stupid stuff 15 years ago, but none of it was out of character. I smoked cigarettes, drank too much, and pirated videogames.

I never said the N word, hit a woman, roofied someone's drink, tortured an animal, or went down on a dude. Not to imply being gay is a negative or comparable to the others, the point is all those things simply aren't in my nature, they aren't what I'm about. It would never even cross my mind to do them.

I mean context would matter in this case. I just saw a clip and it seemed he was from some european country. While it was kinda frowned upon even back then and certainly is more today, the further east you go the less does it matter to anyone and your exposure to the word is song texts of shitty music where they throw it around at every other beat. I certainly had a few class mates back in the day that thought they were the biggest "Gs" because they called one another with such racial slurs and had slightly tanned skin (none of them were actually black). That is the difference 15 years and a trip around half the globe make.

Not that it really matters. While the idea to represent that community is sound, if one didn't anticipate to require absolute laser focus and full blown 24/7 moderation with immediate wrong-think purge, then they probably aren't smart enough to represent the community in the first place. Any decently intelligent person would have anticipated Blizzard reacting this way and even if there was a desire to make sure the poster ment what he said, language barrier or not, the reality is that today no one is afforded such a level of scrutiny. Parse and purge are the only 2 processes allowed here. Anyway, the only regretable thing is that we can't vet the other community council clowns for intelligence as well until they fuck up, but them I'm assuming that the council has a tangible purpose to begin with, which is folly to say the least.

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A lot of the design choices in covenants were excellent. The rewards are all cosmetic and you can basically ignore them. The soulbinds are reasonably well-balanced across covenants. Not perfectly, but ain't nothing perfect.

The soulbinds were not reasonably balanced. Pelagos being the bane of every other DPSs existence. Plenty of soulbinds a simply complete garbage and only some shine through because have broken stuff like pelagos had or the ability itself was even more broken which lifted it even above such concerns.

[Schizoide]

Ahh, OK. Yeah, I can see how that would hit very differently in Europe 15 years ago, an imported word used without our history of slavery and racism. In that case I agree his main problem is being sufficiently stupid to admit to it in a public forum. That should disqualify him from the council right there.

Soulbinds balanced across covenants, not within covenants. Each one had a clear winner, there's always a winner, but pelagos didn't sim unreasonably far ahead of dreamweaver (or whatever).

[Kokolums]

The problem is that people interpret "hey buddy that's a pretty shitty opinion" as a "personal attack." How dare anybody think differently than what {insert favorite YouTuber here} has told you to think!

yah that would be a personal attack worded THAT crude way.

[Relapses]

yah that would be a personal attack worded THAT crude way.

Telling somebody their opinion sucks isn't a personal attack, homeslice.

[Miffinat0r]

Yeah, I don't see anybody representing casual players in this council. Nobody rises questions about simple fact, that Blizzard have been following "Game isn't challenging enough" demands from hardcore players for several recent xpacks, while completely ignoring feedback from casual players, that leaded to game becoming much more hardcore, than it was back in it's golden era. It's not big noticeable thing, that is easy to spot, that makes this game much more hardcore. That's why hardcore players usually say something "What are you talking about? Game is the easiest now". It's many small details. Like casters, having 3 equally deadly casts without school block now, instead of having just one or two with school block, like it was in the past. Way too high base difficulty. Way too weak/slow catch-ups. Annoying and tedious design. Etc.

Overall there just 3 types of content now:
1) Main content - challenging group content. It isn't casual content by definition.
2) Challenging solo content. Somebody at Blizzard assumes, that if content is solo-friendly - then it can only be challenging. More likely - is should be challenging just for the sake of being challenging, i.e. higher challenge isn't properly rewarded.
3) So called "casual" content, that can only be about exceeding grind, that automatically makes it alt-unfriendly.

Problem is - none of this content is truly casual/alt-friendly.

Fully agree with this post. Speaking as a full-time casual player now--that council there has been 0 representation of players like me and I know there's a ton of us out there(Although I think most of us went to ESO/FF14).

Telling somebody their opinion sucks isn't a personal attack, homeslice.

While correct, there is a difference between disagreeing with someone and being rude. The example you offered while isn't a personal attack, it is very much rude toward that person for no gain other than an inability to discuss things with people without throwing insults around.

[Soon-TM]

Telling somebody their opinion sucks isn't a personal attack, homeslice.

It is if you cba elaborating upon why exactly does the opinion in question sucks, moreso when you add cute (and completely unrelated to the subject at hand) stuff such as "omg dem youtubers" or homeslices

[Kokolums]

Telling somebody their opinion sucks isn't a personal attack, homeslice.

when you call it a shitty opinion, yah it is. if you say you disagree, that's not.

[Relapses]

when you call it a shitty opinion, yah it is. if you say you disagree, that's not.

If I called you a shitty person for having a shitty opinion, that'd be a personal attack. But just calling an opinion shitty on its own isn't. There's a difference. Some people are just overly sensitive and cannot accept that there exist people who think differently than they do so they interpret anything that isn't lockstep with their world view a personal attack.

[Miffinat0r]

If I called you a shitty person for having a shitty opinion, that'd be a personal attack. But just calling an opinion shitty on its own isn't. There's a difference. Some people are just overly sensitive and cannot accept that there exist people who think differently than they do so they interpret anything that isn't lockstep with their world view a personal attack.

Put it this way--if in work you told a coworker at a meeting that they have a "Shitty Opinion" do you think HR wouldn't be talking to you afterward?

And even analyzing your response this isn't a case of you thinking that they just have a bad opinion, you're kinda insinuating that they too are shitty or too weak-minded at the very least.

[Relapses]

Put it this way--if in work you told a coworker at a meeting that they have a "Shitty Opinion" do you think HR wouldn't be talking to you afterward?

We're not at work and the moderation team on this website isn't HR. We're adults discussing a video game. If you can't handle another adult using big person words to tell you that they dislike your opinion that's more of a you issue than an HR issue.

And even analyzing your response this isn't a case of you thinking that they just have a bad opinion, you're kinda insinuating that they too are shitty or too weak-minded at the very least.

Wrong again. There is no insinuation. All of that is stuff you imagined. This isn't complicated but the fact that apparently I have to explain it is precisely the reason why so many people think that the Mods on this forum give a free pass to personal attacks.

[OrangeJuice]

A community council with no representative of the PvP community died before it was even implemented imo. The weebs misunderstood the purpose of it and instead turned it into a General Discussion 2.0 with their personal wishlists and dear diary entries. They make 20 posts a day based on their own opinions instead of consolidating the communities' feedback into 1 constructive thread and waiting for a reply on it before adding another thread.