Okay Blizz, we're ready for another spoonful

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
61

Ythisens isn’t a dev, he’s a Community Manager. CMs get the blue text and special Blizz icon next to threads they post in.

Developers rarely post on the forums. Don’t expect them to.

62

From what I’ve seen over the years both here and other boards it’s it…manage the community…which is really a thankless job.

They can’t communicate what they’re not allowed to communicate - which means if there’s no information they don’t have much to give us, which inevitably pisses people off because they can either post nothing and let people stew, or they can post innocent stuff and have fun - which makes other people pissed off.

It honestly seems like a fairly horrible job because they’re just handcuffed all sorts of ways.

What it does NOT seem to include is actual moderation, which is a shame because the boards need it in spades.

4 Likes
63

For the amount of what actual info is communicated, why even have a human in the position at all? So again, what does “manage the community” even entail? It is clear that moderation is not one of the tasks.

I am trying to envision their day. Starting by grabbing a cup of coffee, sitting down at a desk, and then… what?

I mean looking at Y’s posts yesterday (9 of them), he actually had back and forth communication in GD. In here? 2 weak trolls amounting to big fat :fu:

Is it simply for lack of a pro vanilla/classic CM? Notice how much blue-tagged posts get bumped and stay active in the classic forum. Now note that they are most all troll/horribad threads. Now imagine those blue-tagged threads were ones that the CMs wanted to foster discussion in. That alone would help demonstrate to the forum which type of discussions are encouraged.

This thread now has a blue tag. It will remain active for the foreseeable future, much like the “please reconsider” one they tagged that was asking for classic stuff to be shared with retail.

64

It’s good to see some more ‘blue’ activity in these forums. Keep it up.

but while we understand Classic is coming, and greatly appreciate that, what about communication between now and then?

  • Will we see more ‘Dev Watercooler’ posts? (to be honest I liked this idea so much we started doing it with my development team for our business stakeholders)

  • Will we ever have a ‘Classic Q&A’ like you guys keep doing for BFA?

  • Any Idea on if we will see a ‘alpha’ or ‘beta’ open to the public (or at least without an NDA) prior to launch?

It’s okay to not have an answer to these questions yet, but please tell us. You have thrown a bone to a community that has been starving for years and as we patiently gnaw on it, you have reminded us all how truly hungry we are for this. If you feed this community now; you open up the possibility to having one of the most passionate and loyal communities in all of gaming built on your franchise. Don’t throw that away.

1 Like
65

If you want a serious answer:
Depending on the CM involved, it varies they’re assigned to do, but all of their duties are PR-related rather than customer service or moderation. A CM assigned to the website wouldn’t just hang out on the forums, he or she would also be in charge of the writing for the website, from various articles posted to patch notes.

Also, their presence on the forums isn’t to bring news to us, generally. It’s mostly to lurk and to gather information about how we’re thinking, and every once in a while to answer simple questions or mingle in a friendly manner. The thing is, if they get too involved too often, it can actually detract from their mission as information-gatherers for the devs.

Anyway.

Edit: and as always, they cannot tell us things they do not know-- or that they’re not authorized to tell us yet.

2 Likes
66

See, I could understand a tight lipped state with a game or xpac that has not yet been released, but we are talking about a 14 year old game of which we know everything about from release to pre-TBC.

Also like I mentioned above, perhaps some thought could be put into which threads they DO post blurbs in, so that it fosters discussion in healthy threads, or perhaps gives an indication as to what subjects the devs are looking for feedback about. Oh hell, I know this may be a stretch, but maybe actually start threads about subjects they want to be discussed?

Y literally had back and forth in a GD thread yesterday. Has that ever happened in the classic section?

67

Oh I’m not disagreeing at all - I think it would certainly be possible to foster a lost more active, constructive discussion by the CM.

That being said I think there’s a single CM for the entire forums which seems…odd.

68

You are 100% on-point.

They have no additional information to give about Classic at this point, and honestly, they way the “OMG NOCHANGES” crowd reacts to almost any news posted here, there is no place in this forum for a back and forth with the Classic crowd for two reasons…

#1 - They have no idea, as a collective, exactly what they want.

and

#2 - If they don’t get exactly what they want, they stomp their feet, scream like children, and “threaten” to run back to private servers (which most were going to do anyway.)

IMO, They shouldn’t release any solid information here, or about Classic at all (aside from a release date) until Classic is released.

69

I know there used to be several, but I think many of them have moved on to other companies (or positions within Blizz)

70

I’m saying, maybe he literally has nothing to tell us-- OR the devs would rather save announcements so that they’re made in a way that more people will see them at one time. Like posted on the front page of the website. That’s not being tight-lipped, it’s being professional.

That would be an example of meddling too much in the players’ world. I wrote in my previous post that they gather information on what we’re thinking about. Leading us along would not be conducive to that end.

Well, yes. When he was around for that time in November through early December, he’d josh around with folks.

1 Like
71

I think it’s pretty clear that there is a huge population of people who want Classic to be as close to Vanilla as we can possibly get. We don’t want retail QoL changes or a cash shop. There is no confusion about that.

This is clearly a biased and unfair characterization of negative feedback. If you expect the community to accept things like sharding and loot trading without resistance you clearly underestimate our passion for the original game. If Blizzard were to announce something that shows dedication to Vanilla it would be met with nearly universal praise. The entire community would lose it’s collective mind if we could get an uplifting piece of news like “There will never be a cash shop” or “After seeing all of the feedback we decided loot trading is a bad idea.”

2 Likes
72

For some who are being hurt over the sassy at least we know the forums are read. Regardless if you like his response at least we know by the response that someone is reading and looking at these forums.

73

In that group, you still have subgroups that want different things. Warrior threat differences, AV versions, things released at different times, etc.

QoL changes is a big envelope. Undoubtedly some of the smaller, less intrusive ones will make it through (right-click report, loot trading for examples), but I doubt you’ll see any of the bigger ones like LFD/LFR, Xrealm, Transmog, etc…

This will almost certainly make its way into Classic in some form. Best just accept that fact. Almost every game released by Blizz/Activ now has some form of MTXs. Classic will as well, bet on it.

They did, at Blizzcon. It wasn’t met with the universal praise on this forum you claim it was. The community is divided, it’s really that simple.

To be clear: I want Classic to be as close to Vanilla as possible. I don’t care about loot trading one way or another, I’d prefer there was no cash shop, but accept that it is coming. I want sharding during what is sure to be an absolutely insane launch period, then don’t want to see it again after that. I don’t feel that things like LFD/LFR, Transmog, and the like have any place in Classic. I wouldn’t mind an improved group-finding interface though. An LFG-type of interface that was server specific that would require whispering group makers/those searching for groups and did not teleport people to the dungeons. Also, an improved guild-finding interface. Guilds are very important in Classic, and having a tool to help someone find the right guild for them is something that would be good, I believe (though Blizzard has never been able to accomplish this in the history of WoW.)

1 Like
74

You sure read a lot into a blue popping in once a month and posting a couple small nothings and then hopping back to the GD forum. “Reading and looking” for what, 30 seconds it took to post those two things?

75

I’m curious what you mean by this? I seem to remember 16 debuffs being nearly universally praised. Having 8 to begin with then transitioning to 16 would be preferable. Still, people were happy to see it wasn’t unlimited at the very least.

Other than that I can’t really think of an announcement that made me think Classic will be like Vanilla.

1 Like
76

But this forums is also ungrateful. The truth is nothing to update or to give or that he can give, he could have just read it said to himself oh nothing to give and move along which then everyone be whining blues don’t even look at these forums no one pays attention to us. Instead he attempted to respond to be like hey im here I read the forums but I got nothing for you and instead of some at least being like at least thanks for letting us know your still around people get upset because its not what they want to hear.

1 Like
77

Bull. It has been demonstrated that when they post pro vanilla-classic stuff they are lauded.
After a month of nothing posting edgy snark is not healthy.

78

:thinking:

1 Like
79

Way to take just a tiny piece of the post, but you do you.

Note the words “as close as possible”.

That means I am willing to accept certain compromises based on the difference between the launch of Classic and the launch of Vanilla. One of them is sharding for a limited launch period, because I understand that the launch of Classic is going to be many times the size of the launch of Vanilla, and that the starting areas were not designed with the crowd that is coming in mind, so limited sharding will be necessary to ensure a smooth launch for all concerned.

Everything that has been said so far in PR speak indicates that Blizzard and I are on the same page on this, hopefully they aren’t dissuaded from it by a few loud mouths on the forums.

1 Like
80

There is nothing a CM can really do if they are not given any info to share and blizzard is not interested in fostering specific discussion topics. If the latter was true they could at least create and curate threads for constructive discussion of topics.

So that does beg the question, why even have a CM at all?