I want to talk directly to devs

Well, technically it does break the forum rules. Demanding to speak to (or calling out) Blizzard/Blues/Devs can get a post removed.

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Buy enough stock in Activision to matter.

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this way you can sidestep all that messy business of knowing how to make a video game

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That does not get you a conversation with the Devs either. It gets you a chance to ask questions at shareholder meetings and such - conducted by ATVI, the holding company over Blizzard, Activision, King, etc.

While decisions at that level may impact funding, scheduling, and marketing, it does not impact game features specifically - which is what players want to talk to Devs about.

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technically, everything regarding the player base and people here is technical I guess
and to be fair I technically did not break any rule since all I said was I wanted to and I was in no way demanding it lmao

That’s just not how big corporations work. Sorry

I am curious. Who is it that actively does have a say in what changes are made to the game in terms of stuff like gameplay, allied races, and world design? Do you know if they do listen to what people have to say on the forums and if being vocal can have an impact on what happens?

Allied races and world design go with the story. Those are planned out YEARS in advance. Game mechanics, the major ones, are also planned out well in advance. So if they want to revamp the crafting system, they would start that way before the expansion where the changes happen.

Smaller gameplay changes such as tweaks to the systems they have selected for that expansion happen during development, internal testing, Alpha, Beta, and even after release in patches.

Yes, it does matter. However, the impact is often not felt for years after the feedback is given due to the way the game is developed and planned. An allied race for example is NOT a simple thing to do. It has to be proposed, lore sorted, stories written, quests written, char model made, art assets and armor made, etc. Getting all that approved, funded, scheduled, staffed, and integrated into the game is not a fast thing.

There are tons of examples though of Blizz listening to player feedback - we did get flying back after all, even if Pathfinder was a compromise. It is just that a LOT of the feedback is so conflicting. For the vocal folks who want X class change, there are vocal folks who want Y instead. For those who want a PvP focus, there are lots who want PvE, or Transmog, or Raid or… it goes on and on.

Backing up and looking at it top down, examining the development timeline, and focusing on what you can have an impact on, and when, helps reduce frustration.

For most big things it is going to be “considered in a future expansion”.

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Very interesting. The reason I bring this up is because there was there was a discussion in an allied race race thread about whether or not blizzard listens to allied race requests. It was a discussion about whether or not vulpera was added based on popularity and mechagnomes a sign of blizzard not listening to the community which also extended to some other allied race requests.

Allied races and world design go with the story. Those are planned out YEARS in advance.

This is exactly why I was on the side of it not mattering because I presume all bfa races were decided long before bfa was even announced.

Lore is active on Twitter though he only interacts when calling players richardbags.

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Gave you your 2nd like for the topic - you’re welcome.

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I want to talk directly to devs

you should probably get over yourself

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This was flagged because?

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online booly

Yes. Those decisions are made well ahead of time. They know the general themes of what is popular among what potions of the player base. By the time they announce any details, those decisions are broadly made, the lore and quests are being written, art assets worked on etc.

They also realize that some things won’t be as popular, but they do it for their own reasons. Lore reasons? There are also systems they put in game that may turn out to be less successful than they wanted, so next expansion they try a different system. You see it every time - trial and error. Crafting is one of the big ones I tend to track. How relevant is it to BiS gear? the economy? how much time does it take? How long does it take to level? How accessible are the patterns? That is wildly different from expansion to expansion.

It is VERY rare they make a major change to the core systems in game during an expansion, even if it is not perfect. They tweak it, but the big changes come next expansion, or the one after that.

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But… if you did that you could get a much higher paying job than working for honor points at Blizzard.

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Because people on the forums abuse the flagging system as a form of downvoting.

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Thank you for the info. This helps put things in perspective.

:+1:

Sometimes I think about wanting to work for Blizzard, since I’ve got the skills and genuinely honestly could do a better job with certain things - I’m not being a braggart, it’s just the simple reality of the situation. But then I remember I’d have to take both a substantial pay-cut and also see a substantial increase in workload, and then realize that I don’t actually care that much about what is, at the heart of it, a skinner box wrapped in boomer Tolkien fan-fiction. I like World of Warcraft a lot, but not enough to actually ruin my work/life balance over.

Do you (plural you) know why Game Development is one of the fastest growing industries for Venture Capital? Because the ROI is massive when a large part of development costs are subsidized by the passion of the developers. If developers were actually paid according to industry standard, you would not see nearly the interest that you do compared to other sectors of software development.

No communication can be had here. Go to twitter and use the @warcraftdevs