I understand this has been a bit of a redundant topic lately, but with AV weekend looming I and many others would certainly appreciate additional guidance regarding what could be deemed as non-acceptable-participation in BGs.
I have read the earlier post by Pazorax and Vrakthris regarding this. I understand the OPSEC concerns regarding with what can and cannot by divulged, and I also understand the value of having intentionally vague or open-ended definitions of protocol. I would assume however that internally they are some what more concrete definitions of these topics, and working off of nothing more than “…data analysts poring over a variety of metrics that we collect…” and “…it might be a good idea to work with the current group and adopt their strategy…”
The primary area that I am seeking guidance on would be how does one determine what the “group tactics” are? What is the chain of command in the battleground? Surely having every member of the battleground roving as one pack can’t be the intended design of the gameplay. How can I, as a solo que fighter for the Horde know my role, and intended purpose?
What if by whatever method the chain of command and “acceptable-participation activities” are established, my role is to defend a capture point or tower – that does not come under an acceptable level of challenge by the standards of who or whatever is reviewing the data? If this role is explicitly stated via in game chat i.e “Hollatime, defend SHB with your life and never step foot outside until it burns.”, is that taken into consideration during the very thorough and nuanced review that may occur?
How in depth or just how clear of a representation is presented during these reviews? For example a common thing in RBGs is to be aware of where and when opposing stealth units are on the map as it offers great insight on potential attacks on capture points. What if I am solo defending a node and I am aware a rogue or druid on the opposing team have not shown themselves and come to the conclusion that I should be on alert rather than “Oh gee guess defending this node is pointless” and run off somewhere else? Is this sort of data available to who or whatever is conducting the review? What if the rogue or druid in this example was just AFK somewhere? Does it make or break my case if they were lurking around the node I was defending or not? Is anyone even aware of this scenario occurring on Blizzard’s end?
Having some insight into what is being taken into consideration during these very thorough and complete reviews or more clarity on what the thresholds may or may not be internally would really help alleviate a lot of concerns myself and many other players have expressed recently. If there is no clearly defined guidance even on Blizzard’s side of things - is it solely left to discretion? Could separate people come to separate conclusions after trudging through the manual review?
I understand the desire to leave things open ended and that posters on this forum may not have the power or may not be inclined if they do to provide more clear cut guidelines for us players, but “tweet Chris Metzen for their vision” isn’t that realistic of an alternative. If I had a channel to have that conversation, I wouldn’t be posting on the CS forum nor would all the others I imagine.
Unfortunately, you won’t get an answer here in the Customer Support forum. This would be best posted in General Discussion. Alternatively, sending a Tweet to https://twitter.com/WarcraftDevs would be a good option as well.
Basically, you’re not going to have a one on one discussion with anyone regarding the specifics of a policy. It is entirely up to the developers to decide what is posted and how much information is divulged.
Your not gona get a clear answer here thats been stated multiple times and multiple thread locks. My advice dont go rogue dont do quests stick with the magority of the players if no one is going after the towers do solo the towers.
I certainly understand that a truly well defined set of standards won’t be made available, but I hope that some form of additional guidance could be provided as what has been made available is incredibly ambiguous and vague.
Your not gona get one. Im gona make one last point This thread needs to die Its a violation of the FORUM COCreopening a thread multiple times after its locked even if its a different person.
I would like to see additional information as well, however there are limits and restrictions placed on information disclosure to prevent people from skirting the rules. That’s the primary reason things like this are kept vague.
As someone with access to information not available to the general public at my job, there are policies in place that I have to follow when speaking about issues that happened. If those polices aren’t followed, I could lose my job or end up with legal trouble, or both.
Thanks for these, I believe I have read them but will give them another look through.
If CS is not the appropriate department for these issues, what would be aside from the actual developers? I assumed that the people handling these actions and reviews would be customer support, not Ion himself reviewing tickets. Is there a separation between customer support and GMs or do neither have involvement?
The developers are the policy makers. CS simply follows the guidelines laid out by the developers. Also, CS is not the one making decisions on account actions or the subsequent appeals.
CS and GMs are one in the same. However, neither GMs nor the CS department had any involvement in the making of policies or the decisions made when looking over the analytics data. That responsibility remained with an undisclosed (to the public) team within Blizzard.
EDITED TO ADD: I also agree with Darthwraith in that this conversation and related subjects need to end. It’s already been discussed too many times, and the Blizzard employees here have posted all they can about the subject.