There is not much for them to say except for " thank you for your feedback", tho I do agree I wish there was more transparency on what was actively going on / being developed / progress. The silver lining is they said they read every post, so there is that.
They also apparently stalk WC3 Discords for feedback aswell.
What are you trying to say here man? What’s the purpose of this thread? To complain about the past? We are receiving blue posts every week now for 3 months and in threads that gives real feedback they’re constantly addressing the issues and answering people. What kind of silence are you talking about?
It is yes.
Where? There is a single QA person who posts in the bug reports section and the weekly patch notes. That’s it.
Threads about issues where hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of people have been unable to launch the game (2.51 error for example) have gone unanswered for long periods, and there is pretty much zero feedback in the general section.
Expecting them to be popping up in every thread is not realistic, especially as many threads are repeating the same feedback and/or full of trolling. However getting an occasional response to commonly raised feedback (such as color saturation, terrain and UI) and technical issues (such as the 2.51 error and progress with beta invitation roll out) would be very welcome and doesn’t seem like an unreasonable expectation.
The 2.51 error is solved already. The majority of threads here don’t address any issue, they’re just spreading hate or doubt. Can you tell me what is the purpose of this thread? I’ve entered here, read the thread author post and i can’t understand what this guy wants. What feedback is he trying to give here? What is he claiming? What’s the objective?
Some examples of the silence that i suppose you guys are talking about…
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/warcraft3/groups/blizzard-tracker/activity/posts
Almost a post every day…
It has, though there was never an official response to it in these forums.
To ask for more regular input from an official source in these forums.
Mostly from one member of the QA team limited only to bug reports, just as I said. Other than that there are just the stickied weekly patch notes and one thread on the beta invitations roll out, which should have been a sticky but isn’t and hasn’t been updated in almost 4 weeks.
Mostly from one member of the QA team limited only to bug reports
And what are you expecting the blizzard team to be doing? Talking about the last episode of the mandalorian with us? They’re working on bugs and giving the necessary reports and the most important thing, fixing the bugs…
stickied WEEKLY patch notes and one thread on the beta invitations
Seriously what are you expecting? WEELKY PATCH NOTES, WEEKLY. Besides the WEEKLY patch notes we have QA team working on bugs answering people almost every day… You’re just proving my point that there is no silence at all.
I’m not expecting them to do anything, I’m suggesting responses from them on issues other than just bug fixes would be very welcome in these forums. And the 2.51 error was a major bug, that recived none.
No I’m not. The posts you have indicated are not responses to disscusions within the General section of the forums, which is what the OP was talking about if I understand them correctly.
Take a look at the blue posts in general discussion threads
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/warcraft3/groups/blizzard-tracker/activity/posts?category_id=5
Seriously from all the sections of this forum, if i was a blizzard employee, general discussion would be section that i would read the least. Because it’s just a bunch of people repeating the same unclear and indirect threads all the time. The majority it’s just a pile of threads spreading hate and doubt about the project. No real feedback, no specific claimings, nothing, just nonsense.
I’ve already read all of those posts, and pointed them out in this discusion, as should be obvious to you by now.
Then you’d be doing your employer and the community a great disservice.
The occasional official response to some of these discussions would go a long way to reducing much of this repetition in my opinion, as I have suggested previously.
There is though, even if picking it out from amongst the detritus can be unpleasant.
Whilst there is no shortage of toxicity here, (something I have spent many hours trying to combat, for free, as I have some respect for the other well-intentioned users of these forums and for the people working hard to try and make this game) there is also plenty of useful and constructive feedback.
Welcome to the Warcraft III: Reforged discussion forums! This forum is here to provide you with a friendly environment where you can discuss all aspects of Warcraft III with your fellow players. Community forums work best when participants treat their fellow posters with respect and courtesy.
It’s not the purpose of the forums for us to have a hand of God, from Blizzard, talk to us. It’s pretty lame that everyone just assumes that they need to interact. Most often a blue post just derails the conversation anyway. The topic will no longer be about the topic. It will become a dead whale at a shark feeding ground.
Started my gaming career with WC3. Ending my gaming career with WC3. Disappointed at every turn with Blizzard, they should have been a pillar of the gaming community- yet its just another disappointment after another- die hards and complete shut ins are the only ones keeping this company going. Id like to see Blizzard sell to someone else and let them take over, its clear as a sunny day in FLorida that the company as a whole has lost its touch. Perhaps a new hire in some Lead places would make some differences, whoevers running the show atm- disgrace
Remember when the Blizzard president said they will make things better?
Well I see totally the opposite…
I can see that could easily happen, it can’t be easy to respond without causing further uproar sometimes.
I can give several examples where I have little doubt a brief and well thought out official response would have been very welcome and likely resulted in less toxicity, false claims and back and forth repetition than leaving it to gossip, rumor and hear-say:
The 2.51 authentication error; A Brief response simply saying they were aware of the issue and working on it would have been very well-received and made many people feel less frustrated. Better yet an update or two along the lines of “we have found the problem and are working on it” or “we hope to have it solved within a week” or “we understand your frustration and will let you know when we have found a solution”.
At the very least “We have resolved the issue, please try to re authenticate your game” would have been welcome.
A post in one of the many threads talking about unit readability and graphics along the lines of “We realize many of you have concerns about unit readability of the game, and we are looking at ways to fine tune lighting and color saturation to improve it. We hope to trial these changes in future patches and think you will be pleased with the results”
Making the beta roll out thread a sticky and updating it occasionally.
“We are aware that many of you feel the size of some units and heroes is wrong and are trialing some changes. The Mountain King will be somewhat larger in the upcoming patch and there are some other changes we are looking at that may also make it in”
Instead of people getting the information 3rd hand when someone links a twitter post made by some streamers of something said in an interview at a live event a post saying “The UI in the current beta version, not the version shown in the 2018 demo is what will be in game at release. We are considering the possibility of adding other UI options after release.” would be very welcome.
A blue post in some of the stupid threads about the new skins may have been unwise, though even there a post in one of the less toxic iterations, or as a new thread or sticky, along the lines of “We are adding new skin options for heroes simply as we believe many players will like them. Players will be able to choose which, if any, of the custom skins they use once the game is released” may have reduced a lot of toxicity and prevented so many threads on the same issue being created.
These are just a few examples off the top of my head, I’m not suggesting this is exactly how they should have worded responses to any of these topics, nor whether a post in an existing thread or a new one would have been better. There are more I could think of but this post is already getting very lengthy.
Yeah there’s a billion different ways that would be awesome for them to communicate. Props to the gentlemen in the Bug Report Section, by the way.
I would love for them to comment but I’m a product of my generation where a game gets placed on a shelf and you have maybe one/two articles, an advertisement and the back of the game box to decipher all the information to make your purchase decision. Maybe that’s influencing my opinion and I understand we are in a new age where video games are getting constant attention.
From my viewpoint, the game is getting updated inside of a beta weekly/biweekly. Stability and fixes are being implemented all over the place. All I’m seeing is progress. Do we really need someone to acknowledge that yes, they indeed, did their job?
I to remember the joys of reading manuals going home from the shops on the bus. It influences my opinion too I expect, though perhaps not in quite the same way.
Those games generally arrived free from bugs, in a highly polished finished state and without ‘added in a patch after release’ being used as an excuse to ship a game with missing features.
They did not have large sections of the content removed from them, and then sold back to you over the following months for extortionate prices like some kind of crappy sports sticker album.
They were not programmed in such as way that the version you paid for was objectively inferior to a version someone else had stolen.
Those games did not require you to sign a contract giving the publishers the right to snoop on how you play that game and sell that information to companies all over the world, many of whom would then re-sell it even more dubious companies in order to manipulate the customer and who knows what else in wider society.
Their publishers did not have the right to take your copy of the game away from you without notice, due to their own financial incompetence or a myriad of other reasons.
Their publishers did not sell a game that did not yet exist with a huge amount of media hype (likely made more effective and wide reaching by some of the other practices noted above) surrounding it only to then change the features of that game without any fanfare or any offer of refund before delivering it to the customers.
Not all of that is related directly to war craft 3 reforged, or blizzard-activision, but quite a lot of it is.
From my viewpoint; publishes had better demonstrate that at least some of this is well-intentioned and of benefit to the consumer, one of the ways they can do this is listening to and acting on feedback, if they expect people to put up with it.
In many cases I no longer do, the list of publishers from whom I am willing to purchase games is rapidly shrinking. I would prefer to keep Blizzard on it, though frankly they are on very thin ice.
Things have changed… New “gamers” are unexperienced and unprepared, publishers, same as game’s makers, industry and games are not the same anymore. Usually all is more casual, less polished, ultra simplified and based on sell/advertisment/hype, not on the work itself.
I call that the mobile games era. But Indies are saving the day so far, more or less.
War3 reforged and Diablo 4 is the last work/oportunity from new Blizz I will look upon, the rest is way too much unsastisfying and mediocre for me. They used to make such amazing games, when you look back then its kinda sad.
Give them time, myself I didnt bought the game yet because of that.
Right and I agree that this practice is garbage but what’s to stop a company from adding features after a release. A company could simply withhold unfinished portions and market them after launch. Either way, it’s a thing now and post release patches are in basically every game to fix game breaking bugs.
The main reason they decided to do this game was because the pro scene was still alive. Enter patch 1.31. The Classic team has said that they are looking forward to putting TFT in a better balance state.
We have new items, new upgrades, new graphics, new servers and a promise for Matchmaking. At what point is there not a well intentioned benefit to the game?
The Classic team has already fixed worse stuff than some contrast and clarity issues with unit identification. Also, as a business, if you are really selling a “reskin”, as dubbed here on the forums, would you really put your final product out on beta release? You kinda destroy that hype factor a bit. If we really are debating over graphical design directions.
Wait one min, you have access to play the campaign? Is that only available to certain people because I certainly do not have access to the reforged campaign.
This is getting really off topic but I’ll respond briefly as it’s an interesting discussion.
Many do and I’m getting pretty fed up with it. Thankfully that doesn’t seem to be the case with WC3:R.
By ‘some of this’ I meant the stuff I had been talking about in that post that is pretty crappy for the consumer, not the fact that Reforged is being made in the first place.
The kind of stuff that stopped me buying a game yesterday that I really liked the look of and was on sale for a great price. I don’t want to name names but it’s about one of, if not the, most famous women characters in gaming and looked like a lot of fun. It seemed to have fixed most of the things I didn’t like about the 1st one (in the series of modern re imaginings) that I had played previously. I read the small print though, something I do now days, and I wouldn’t accept that contract or put that software on my machine if they paid me. A real shame.
If I were to fancy putting on a tinfoil-hat I could think of slightly different reason; that old battle net has been an expense damaging activation’s bottom line (an anathema for any almost any business) for over a decade and Reforged lets them get rid of it without generating negative press. They can then make a few bucks profit off the pre-order money and then let the game die, removing a long-running financial burden from them. Aluminum doesn’t suit me though, and is best left lining the grill pan.
No doubt you’re right.
You absolutely would. Not doing so is showcasing your product looking worse than it could which would be an awful idea. It has received a lot of negative press for how it looks currently, including from a number of pro players who are saying they will not use the new graphics. That negative press will far out weigh any hype that might be generated by the game suddenly looking better a week or two before final release. I have heard a few people mention this idea; that they have deliberately made the beta look worse than it could as they want to save a surprise but it just doesn’t add up and the tinfoil-hats look no better on them than they do me.
That they have, they’re clearly working very hard to try and finish the game on time, and seem to be acting on some of the feed back they have received.
Back on topic; I still think that if you’re going to sell a game long before release the decent thing to do is to allow customers to provide feedback during the pre-release window. They are doing that, but are not doing much to let people know it. More importantly they’re also doing a pretty crappy job of providing support to people having issues as I pointed out much earlier in this thread.
In my opinion these forums are in serious need of some more official input:
In terms of replying to legitimate issues raised by customers, such as technical issues (2.51, beta roll out and so on) and other feedback (graphics, UI, editor features and whatever else).
In terms of moderation, where troll threads containing thinly veiled death threats and other abuse hang around for days and then disappear entirely with no trace, rather than just the offending posts quickly being removed (but only the content of them, not all evidence of them ever having existed) and, if needed, the thread being locked (but not deleted with all traces of it ever having existed removed, including any legitimate posts others may have made in that thread) as is generally the case in forums of this kind.
Maybe this has all been tried in the past (I’m new here and I didn’t really visit these forums when I played Blitz games in the past) and for some reason this approach has been settled on as the best option, but to my eyes there’s a lot of room for improvement. Although I’m not a professional moderator or customer relations expert I have spent a lot of time on various gaming forums, both official and unofficial, over the years and I’ve been quite surprised by how these forums are run.
Where the buck stops for this sort of thing in this company I have no idea. I’m pretty sure it’s not with the talented people who have probably been sleeping at their desks trying to get this game finished, nor the people who have to deal with the vast number of support tickets they are no doubt receiving (which I suspect a little more oversight in these forums could significantly reduce) and none of this is meant to be any kind of insult to their talent and hard work.
I thought the purpose was clear. I’m concerned with the direction reforged has taken and I feel like much of the disaster could have been avoided if there was more back and forth between Bliz and the community.
You may show that Bliz (or one member really?) is communicating with us, but he’s not really communicating on anything that really needs an in depth discussion. He’s just fixing bugs. That’s not really the back and forth communication I meant. Bugs go like this:
Bugs aren’t really a concern that needs an in depth conversation. They’re just errors you fix and have a minimal effect on the overall design direction. What players typically contribute with bugs is just a step by step on how to reproduce the bug. That’s it. Maybe they can offer an idea of what might be causing the bug? That’s it though. Donezo
The problems I’m talking about are much deeper such as art direction.
Here, take a look at this thread that shows a side by side comparison of the 2018 demo to our live beta. The beta looks awful.
I know, you’ll ask why, so here’s why (I already posted this before):
And that’s just some of the basic stuff. Like, look at the terrain for 2018 vs 2019. Then look at the UI. Then look at the models. Then look at all the stuff that has been cut (campaign voices, etc. because apparently the community didn’t want new voices and new stuff added to the campaign???). Looks different on these forums and I just feel like a lot of this stuff could have been avoided if they took feedback from the community instead of just like 4 old professional players that don’t want to adapt to new art, etc. Why cater to 4 over a million?
And no, I’m not saying to have the community design the game. Devs can do that way better. What I’m saying is if the devs are asking the community for feedback on something to decide what to change and what not to change, they should try a little harder to get that feedback from their playerbase. A little back and forth could have gone a long way. And no, I don’t mean just to ask the four pro players that still exist for War3 about what they want. Community needs and pro needs are very different. Pros don’t make the community. The community makes pros.