If a company caters to the vocal 1-5% of it’s customer base, it’s always in danger of losing the other 95+%. Companies which employ this type of strategy are the ones who have gradual attrition in the customer base right up to the point where a competent competitor seizes the opportunity to gain market share which triggers a more noticeable exodus of customers.
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I was expecting it to be a lot worse considering the product of BFA, but I have no doubt that a lot of good feedback is probably getting ignored,.
I kinda have the ability to put up with arrogant people if they do indeed know what they’re doing, but this doesn’t seem to be the case.
I am not upset if they have a secret forum where select players get to talk to them about game changes, mechanics, etc. That is beyond me, I just play to enjoy the game.
Now, would I like to be in a “special, secret” forum where the devs get feedback on lore and story to keep things consistent? Hell yeah! I love the lore of WoW and I would love to be a part of that group.
This is the one I’d be interested in. There’s a lot of editing work that folks would be willing to do for free-- even for those of us who write professionally
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They don’t have a sub forum for the Lore discussions. As much as players would LOVE to be involved in the story, that is something Blizz scripts out usually two expansions in advance and keeps quite secret. To really help, you would have to know what the new upcoming story is - something they are very protective of.
They have actual job positions at Blizzard that are tasked with keeping track of all the lore and working with Devs, quest writers, etc. to ensure things stay reasonably on track.
Of course, what that track is going to be is determined by whoever is in charge of the main story direction.
Here is an article about what the Blizzard Historians do. It is a bit old, but it gets the point across as to what the job entails.
https://www.engadget.com/2013-09-12-a-day-in-the-life-of-blizzard-historian-sean-copeland.html
Now, we can all debate if this system gets the results you might like, but that is how they currently do it.
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Well whatever they’ve been doing hasn’t been working since every expansion since Cata releases with tons of stuff that the player base hates enough to quit over and Blizz ends up applying bandaid fixes to try and get players back.
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I can pretty much guarantee that they will pay attention to a large number of people hitting that unsub button more than any group of emotionally attached nerds whining about not being listened to in their super, secret forum.
At the end of the day, that’s all it is: people too emotionally attached to a video game and lashing out when they aren’t getting the responses that they feel entitled to in lieu of gaining access to a secret club.
Don’t like the game or the direction it’s heading: quit. It saves your own personal sanity and drives home a much more meaningful message.
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I think there’s a lot to be said about lore breaking down, and how the story in particular has not held consistent standards. I know that MMO’s in general aren’t going to value story to the degree that, say, a visual novel may, but I think it’s fair to say that there really needs to be some long-term editing work.
I realize that WC3 had the luxury of being a single release game in a short time span, so the story was obviously always going to be tighter, but there’s a strong, simple story there that I wish they’d take a lot of cues from.
-Attractive man in position of power gets corrupted by his own hubris.
-Downtrodden servant breaks free from oppression to build a future for people like themselves (sylvans and thrall).
-Conflicted daughter of a soldier experiences both the consequences of warmongering and pacifism.
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Exactly this.
And even if the vast majority of players did have an adequate understanding, a large, open forum is simply way too much data.
It’s the same reason I roll my eyes when people say a completely open beta would give Blizz much useful feedback at all.
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FF14 would like a word with you. That entire game is built around story. Even the crafting jobs have story lol.
I didn’t grow up with WC3, I started playing it about two or three weeks ago, but I literally have not made it past the Undead campaign because the story was, to me, completely nonsensical and lacking any character motivation.
FF14 has a self-indulgence problem. Menphilia was not a good character and a lot of a realm reborn was just incoherent. Loved Heavensward though.
That didn’t change what I said in the slightest.
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I think if the selling point of ff14 is the story then it needs a lot of work. To me it’s still more fixated on gameplay and an anime aesthetic and reliving the nostalgia of its other properties than telling a story front and center. It has good moments but it’s not really comparable to the better visual novels I’ve played.
Your opinion of the story is irrelevant to the comment I replied to.
This is neither new or exciting.
Blizzard have had various avenues of feedback since before WoW.
We used to talk to Blizzard devs over IRC back in the day, mainly just fan site people, as we’d put out the gaming news back then.
Lotta hoopla over nothing.
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In this case I would say the “maverick” was GC. When the employees invested in something like these “secret” forums leave the company they also leave their former projects to people who may not be as invested in them. They will continue to implement these little projects if they are told to, but they won’t care if they succeed. In fact, if they never liked those special forums they may purposely let them fail just in hopes they will no longer exist.
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I do not agree that FF14’s quests are very different in terms of a narrative being present than wow’s quests.
The forums seem to exist not to work together to improve the game and make it more fun, but to provide the devs with ways to implement what they have already decided.
If you have a disgruntled customer how do you get them to shut up? Let them talk and pretend you’re listening.
I don’t believe that was the original intention, but I believe it’s what these secret forums have become.
I think if blizzard seriously wants to improve the communication and the way blizzard is perceived they are going to have to sit down with some people the community trust and spend some real time answering the hard questions honestly. Not the scripted questions, but the real questions that players want answers to.
If we want something we have to sit down and write out very well thought out posts and try to win over the developers for our petition. Lizard though, never has to do that. They just do what they do and never convince the players that these decisions are for the best. If they want to change player perception they need to do this.
Again, your opinion is irrelevant to the comment I replied to lol. Your opinion of the story doesn’t change the fact that the game is wholly built around it’s story in every facet of the game.