Bornakk, still here?

Community General Discussion
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Blizzard says they want to do better communicating with players. Acti-Blizz then downsizes customer service reps, and community managers. I know fewer people doesn’t necessarily equate to poorer communication going forward; but it is a bad look though…

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64

While we have a blue in this thread could you please tell the devs to get rid of the ridiculous holiday transmog restrictions. Thank you. :pensive:

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65

Flown the coop because the coop’s been set on fire, would probably be a better analogy.

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Right now the actions are “we fired the only person who visibly cared what players thought even though we broke records we still felt it necessary to make a bunch of people unemployed and hurt our reputation with the players and the outside world. But investors love it so we’ve got that going for us”

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I’ve never seen such unanimous community outrage about something Blizzard’s done.

Announcing this like it was an awesome thing we should be excited about was just supremely stupid.

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Bornakk

I’ll offer a suggestion here…the top brass or whoever does things could do worse than post here and discuss whats going on…“a word to the troops” so to speak.

I think some reassurances are in order, more details on whats going on and what we can come to expect.

Seriously.

Someone needs to step up here…and fast.

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Yeah it’s pretty clear going forward that Blizzard has lost touch with the players and community. The Blizzard that we used to know and love, is gone. Go ahead and defend those massive bonuses to the leadership at Activision-Blizzard, while the workforce gets crapped on. I dare you.

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It sounds kind of like you are looking for the official update on the situation was posted yesterday (not sure if you saw it or not): https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzard/22887360/message-from-j-allen-brack

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Bornakk

A LATAM player has raised concerns, and in answer to your post, at risk of getting my head taken off or worse ( the hell with it Ive been sitting on my hands for months )…there are parts of the community who have not seen a CM post on issues we have been asking to be addressed for over two years.

There are two or three matters that have gone unaddressed, and yesterday I heard people talking in voice and elsewhere that we, the OCE community, may as well give up.

With Ythisens gone thats one voice less…even when he didnt even comment on things for us at least he was here.

You say “the rest of the community:”…whats OCE then? What are we? We are part of the community are we not?

With whats just happened…what can we expect? Where are we?

What now? Who is going to talk to us? Anyone?

I dont claim to speak for all, but there are many who saw what happened and have said “Well we’re done…we wont get anywhere now…” and thats not a good thing.

Right now, with all thats going on ingame and outside, communication with your playerbase needs to be at the top of the list.

So what now, Bornakk? On behalf of those of us who have spoken about whats happened…as part OF the WOW community which we ARE and always have been…what can we expect?

Whats the next step?

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No.

I didnt write this but this is what I am referring to

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I remain skeptical about this statement. Do they mean that each development team is getting a 20% increase or that as a total there will be a 20% increase? I can totally see Activi$ion giving CoD 15% of that because it is an easy cash in with no real effort needed (all CoD games have been basically the same rehashed crap since MW2) , then the remaining franchises each see a 1% increase as a token gesture.

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Off to a great start, keep it up! Actions are always a greater indication than platitudes.

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There is no way to tell for sure. I suspect that will depend on the needs of each franchise and what they are developing. A mobile game may have a small team while Diablo, for example, has been hiring lots and lots of people so we can assume whatever game it is, takes quit a bit of resources.

I was honestly just happy to hear that there IS going to be investment in real content development still.

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Bornakk my friend we need to get you an icon.

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I want my Worgen Deathknight to look as snowy white as that fox. I hope the new models can offer me something like that. Also yay blue post xD

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I wish I shared your optimism.

I dont. Not anymore. Im not jaded…just used to being disappointed.

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I’m sure you wont.

That was sarcasm btw. We all know how this game works. Blizz says they’ll listen better, we agree and do a happy little dance and then they continue to crap all over us and plug their ears.

I just find it hard to take any Blue’s or anyone from Blizz’s word for it when we have threads that go on for months and months with over 4500 posts worth of feedback and not a single word spoken from a blue. A simple “we have seen the feedback and they’re working on it” is 10000000000x better than the absolute silence we get EVERY SINGLE TIME.

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Blizzard says they want constructive feedback.

I could, today or tomorrow, sit down and write a three page essay on the OCE issues at hand. Details, specifics, suggested solutions, WHY these are a problem and why we have been asking to fix them.

I could then post that essay. Here or in the OCE forums.

Result?

In a weeks time I will come back to find that post

  1. Buried

  2. Unacknowledged

  3. Never responded to. Not one word.

In that time I have accomplished what…aside from wasting three hours?

If a customer sends you a three page letter, and you read it then toss it aside without even acknowledging you have recieved it…whats the first thing they will ask the next time they see you?

“Did you get my letter?”

So…I ask as many have…whats the point in trying? And now where are we?

Is Ythisens being replaced? Aside from Bornakk who will respond in GD now? Is he alone now? I read the article he linked…nowhere does it address the fact another community manager has left the building.

We need to know: who do we talk to now?

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81

Actions do speak louder than words now. It’s been well known for a long time now that communication is terrible. Despite commitments to improve things, I can’t see any evidence it has gotten better or will ever get better, especially now that the most communicative CM was laid off.

We rarely see Lore or Kaivax anymore, and when we do it’s usually just to mention a hotfix to a very specific problem. Bornakk had only recently resurfaced after years of silence.

Honestly, what’s the point in try to give feedback anymore. It’s a waste of time.

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I would like to make a suggestion though. Many cultures in the world practice the concept of “active listening”, meaning that the listener gives some sort of acknowledgement that they are there and listening to the speaker. For example, in Japan a person will say “hai”, or “yes”, periodically to signify this.

My suggestion is that you and the other Blues adopt this practice. Now I know it sounds silly to expect you, Lore, or anyone else to do something like my example above and say something in every post you read. But perhaps some sort of flag can be set to signify that you have read the thread in question? Because it is equally silly to assume you’ve read every thread as well.

The reason I think this is the best course of action is because, from our perspective, threads without a Blue’s response are perceived to be ignored/overlooked/etc. Being a Pre-Cata player, I was used to the Suggestions forum back on the old old system and there was never a Blue response for legal purposes IIRC. So I am used to threads being apparently overlooked when in fact they are not. But I think the modern players expect a bit more active participation… especially those spoiled by Ghostcrawler’s frequent posts and Dev Watercoolers.

A flag, placed automatically of course, would alleviate this I think.

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