The first gate was opened in 20 days, less than 3 weeks, try again.
yeah and Blizzard said BFA was meant to last 2 years and people actually made 120 in 24hrs
What? Those two aren’t even related, he was speaking of the the event.
No, you are not. You are focusing on one cause I think.
False - that they have reduced CS/GM staff. Those were not in the recent cuts.
True - there are a LOT more support requests due to pandemic changes and those seeking online entertainment.
Reality - hiring people in the middle of a pandemic when you can’t get them in for training and teach them to use tools safely - is an issue. Even so, surge support is an issue as complicated as Blizz support is. It is not like a 2 day class for one game. They support EVERYTHING and go through weeks of training. Doing so is a big deal…they are not disposable.
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Over vanilla player to CS/GM to player ratios? I’m referring to vanilla response times, which imo had a lot to do with overall player behavior (you’re likely to think twice before acting a certain way if you know its likely to net you a suspension), and the lack of response has a lot in turn to do with the level of rampant toxicity in classic. Certain behaviors that were actionable in vanilla appear not to be in classic, or simply not enforced. Help and assistance from gms is much harder to come by in any meaningful way.
Retail response times are irrelevant to me honestly - its a very different game.
There is ONE team. It handles all the games.
- Starcraft and all variations
- Diablo 2, 3, Immortal when it releases, D4 eventually.
- Hearthstone
- Heroes of the Storm
- Overwatch
- World of Warcraft retail and classic.
There is no dedicated team to Classic. Times have changed and that is not the only game Blizz has real person support for. I know that is not fun to hear, but that is how it works.
Further, the need to appear in game for GMs went away long ago when they improved the GM tools. They mostly don’t even need to talk to anyone anymore. Classic is on the new logging system and support system.
I think thats up for debate. The system may not require it but I think losing that has led to a lot of the disconnect and feeling that the GM staff is failing to adequately provide the needed support.
It amazes me to still see people abusing the already flawed automated system, even though automation has been flawed for years and yet companies still use to cut costs but it doesn’t hide the fact that you still need personnel to review “Questionable” reports like this.
However, these people who abused the system needs to be heavily punished.
Oh certainly the personal touch is gone. It feels bad. That said, how do you actually TALK to millions of people who put in tickets for things that are mundane and routine? It is a waste of their time and the GM’s time. The GM’s need to go on to other folks.
I have only put in about 3 tickets ever. But the last one I got a real contact on! I was shocked. The issue was so rare and odd they actually needed to talk to me and it impacted thousands of others once we sorted out my hunch on what was wrong.
Most stuff…is routine. Personal contact feels nice of course, but it means 10 more folks wait in line while a GM gets pressed for jokes 
EDIT
I am not disagreeing with you. Personal contact feels a hell of a lot better. However managing that staff is a PITA to maintain across all the games. Some self service options are good. Further using logs to just resolve it mostly works. They save the in person for odd situations.
i mean, from what i recall it was pulled off pretty effectively vanilla through wrath. its disappointing to see it gone and staff cut.
They did not have the modern tools nor did they have all the other games to support. Look at the release dates for other Blizz games. They went from mostly WoW support to a ton of other stuff too!
CS/GM staff were cut many years ago. Many. There have been no recent CS staff cuts. The last cut was front facing - publishing, marketing, PR, Community Managers, esports. None of the support team nor dev teams were touched.
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If there’s one thing I’ve learned while posting in this Classic forum, it’s that people will never, ever abandon their false narratives no matter how much evidence you provide that disproves them.
Here’s the legal document I’ve linked a dozen times showing that the only two positions cut from the CS department were a Bliz. IT Analyst and a Blizzard BI Programmer, zero actual CS. People still claim that hundreds of CS were cut in the February 2019 layoffs:
https://www.scribd.com/embeds/401389950/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-Dh96i2zsTyPm8t95vdMf
3 Tickets ever huh?
You must be relatively new then.
I have 3-4 tickets dedicated to 1 Alliance rogue botting out in Swamp of Sorrows.
He’s still on my friend list so I can keep tabs on him in order to see how long it takes them to investigate and ban him.
I know he’s botting because he uses the same ability combo on every mob, including mods I tag with rank 1 fireblast.
I’ve had him farm 5 dragons in a row for me before. He also herbs on a set trajectory in between grinding a specific area.
Eventually he’ll be banned, but it will take weeks.
That’s the problem. They are overwhelmed and not responsive enough, and they’ve not been transparent or opened an honest dialogue with the community about how they intend to fix that going forward.
I don’t expect them to fix problems immediately, but it took them being shamed on multiple social media platforms before they began to more aggressively deal with botting.
That doesn’t mean they weren’t doing anything prior to being shamed on social media…just that what they were doing wasn’t making enough of a dent.
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Again, as I’ve said several times - when the cuts happened is irrelevant. I was never arguing that, I’m not sure why you keep bringing it up.
The point I am making here is that there is a marked difference in the customer service and gm support received in vanilla vs classic - and its bad for the game, and reflects in the increasingly degrading community behavior and general rampant toxicity.
And with that increased library of games comes increased revenue. Are you telling me the same or fewer CS agents are expected to to handle blizzard’s entire library of games as they did in vanilla? Are you telling me ‘modern tools’ didnt allow them to improve CS if they chose to devote the resources to it? That simply doesnt make any sense.
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try me out . I like t
Try me out . Am one of those who believe even if it hurt there still something that might be valuable in the learning experience
This is the most disturbing thing i have ever read on these forums, blizzard is a billion dollar company and can 100% afford to invest in teams for each game including the classic version of Wow, the fact that they don’t to save a tiny scrap of money they wouldn’t even miss is a snapshot of why the company is no longer respected by the fans. The irony is on a longer timeline…this will ultimately cost them more money than it will ever save when people refuse to buy their games anymore.
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do some math . Bobby Kothik is paid 25 m a years. You think there anything left after that
There is plenty left over, the problem is greed not lack of funds.
Name another gaming company with a multitude of online games that has dedicated CS teams for each of their titles.
That seriously worries me because our server has sweaties who cheat by hiring the other faction to clear us out and who knows what extent they’ll go to and get us banned with false reporting. Hope you guys get a happy ending.
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