The new Guild UI and Permissions...yikes (Part 1)

Fumel-arathor · December 2, 2018, 1:29am

Here is a post from earlier in the thread (Aug 6) with a list of terrific ideas for improving guilds:

Greenstone:

You know someone said something that clicked for me.

I know that Blizzard does e-mail surveys about their products cause I have gotten a few. Normally they do not give announcements about these surveys and they normally have to do with their websites but I am sure you can setup a system where you can e-mail out to all the Guildmasters in the game and have them respond to a survey regarding what they would like to see.

Could be a list of questions with built in answers or just ask for 128 character response for each question. (Like the old twitter limit.)

This could help the Devs get a better understanding of what the community wants and could potentially lead to a better interface for Guildmasters.

Here is simple breakdown of things we could get for guilds:

01. We want to have the old permissions back - allowing us to specifically make ranks with permissions we choose.

02. We need the ability to MUTE guild chat for players to avoid conflicts and create buffer from new people just spamming in guild once they join.

03. We want to have some control over the new logging system in guild community and officer channels, allowing officers or gm’s to clear the log or make it private even. This way adult conversations are not always present in chat.

04. Fix the in game recruiting app so that when someone requests an invite and they are OFFLINE (not on game) you can just hit a button that says “ginvite next time they are online” or sends a link to them that will autoinvite them to guild just like the community UI does with the channels.

05. We would like lootmaster added back to the game (if its been completely removed from raids) since its the raiding teams choice whether to use it or not. Maybe have a flag if more than 3-4 pugs in a group lootmaster is turned off.

06. We would like to have guild rewards mean something again meaning that all the efforts we put in as a group means something, the rewards we can purchase from the guild vendor are basically from wraith content if I remember correctly or BC, they are pretty old, these should be updated every year with different mounts or toys or even buff items.

07. It would be awesome for every year a Guildmaster runs a guild they are given some sort of reward as well, such as an XP boost they can grant to other people for an hour, or something cool to show they have earned the gratitude of Blizzard for taking care of communities and players.

08. An in game tool that shows all the guilds on a server, their size and their current standing at boss kills or pvp. These stats are available on different websites on the internet but really by now they should be integrated into game with a click allowing users to see things like that. (Also give an option to keep it private for those that don’t want to publish their stats.)

09. Give a bigger cap to all guilds regarding membership and the ability to create more ranks. (I think the limit is 8 but could be 10 don’t remember.)

10. Allow us to ginvite cross server - not just make a community for pugs - because official kills don’t count unless the person is in the guild. (Should probably make a check on this person is not counted until two days of actually being in a guild so pugs can’t be autoinvited and released after a raid.) Its a big problem for servers like Hyjal which is horde dominated and not many new alliance are on it.

Lots of ideas come to mind but those are the first 10 that could think put down.

Greenstone 2018

I think the ability to mute chat (idea #2 on the list) was implemented, but the rest of these ideas are all still valid–and are wonderful ideas imo.

Merridae-aerie-peak · December 2, 2018, 1:53am

Oh I dunno I believe we could describe movement on this as distinctly biological in nature something you might take Ex-Lax for.

Nêlsôn-greymane · December 2, 2018, 3:01am

Fumel-arathor:

Here is a post from earlier in the thread (Aug 6) with a list of terrific ideas for improving guilds:

Greenstone:

You know someone said something that clicked for me.

I know that Blizzard does e-mail surveys about their products cause I have gotten a few. Normally they do not give announcements about these surveys and they normally have to do with their websites but I am sure you can setup a system where you can e-mail out to all the Guildmasters in the game and have them respond to a survey regarding what they would like to see.

Could be a list of questions with built in answers or just ask for 128 character response for each question. (Like the old twitter limit.)

This could help the Devs get a better understanding of what the community wants and could potentially lead to a better interface for Guildmasters.

Here is simple breakdown of things we could get for guilds:

01. We want to have the old permissions back - allowing us to specifically make ranks with permissions we choose.

We need the ability to MUTE guild chat for players to avoid conflicts and create buffer from new people just spamming in guild once they join.

We want to have some control over the new logging system in guild community and officer channels, allowing officers or gm’s to clear the log or make it private even. This way adult conversations are not always present in chat.

Fix the in game recruiting app so that when someone requests an invite and they are OFFLINE (not on game) you can just hit a button that says “ginvite next time they are online” or sends a link to them that will autoinvite them to guild just like the community UI does with the channels.

We would like lootmaster added back to the game (if its been completely removed from raids) since its the raiding teams choice whether to use it or not. Maybe have a flag if more than 3-4 pugs in a group lootmaster is turned off.

We would like to have guild rewards mean something again meaning that all the efforts we put in as a group means something, the rewards we can purchase from the guild vendor are basically from wraith content if I remember correctly or BC, they are pretty old, these should be updated every year with different mounts or toys or even buff items.

It would be awesome for every year a Guildmaster runs a guild they are given some sort of reward as well, such as an XP boost they can grant to other people for an hour, or something cool to show they have earned the gratitude of Blizzard for taking care of communities and players.

An in game tool that shows all the guilds on a server, their size and their current standing at boss kills or pvp. These stats are available on different websites on the internet but really by now they should be integrated into game with a click allowing users to see things like that. (Also give an option to keep it private for those that don’t want to publish their stats.)

Give a bigger cap to all guilds regarding membership and the ability to create more ranks. (I think the limit is 8 but could be 10 don’t remember.)

Allow us to ginvite cross server - not just make a community for pugs - because official kills don’t count unless the person is in the guild. (Should probably make a check on this person is not counted until two days of actually being in a guild so pugs can’t be autoinvited and released after a raid.) Its a big problem for servers like Hyjal which is horde dominated and not many new alliance are on it.

Lots of ideas come to mind but those are the first 10 that could think put down.

Greenstone 2018

I think the ability to mute chat (idea #2 on the list) was implemented, but the rest of these ideas are all still valid–and are wonderful ideas imo.

Yeah I like a lot of those ideas, although I doubt blizzard will budge on lootmaster, guilds that used it, used it properly, with personal loot many many items that could be traded can’t be and just get wasted.

Druunah-ravencrest · December 2, 2018, 3:03am

Well.

Here we are all these many months later.

^^That was August 6th^^

Forgive me Blizzard for harboring doubts as we are now in December.

I am unsure what to say.

Yup. We are aware that you are aware.

Sorry, that is no longer good enough and it hasn’t been good enough for a very long time now.

No you don’t and no you haven’t. You have shared almost zero. Even the post I am quoting right now from Ythisens tells us very little beyond “you’re aware of us”

So what now?

What if anything are you (Blizzard) going to do about it?

Can you honestly say to all of these Guild Leaders who have done as you asked by providing feedback for these many months that you still don’t

Seriously?

I mean, we realize you have your hands full with an apparent flop of an xpac, but someone honestly can’t spare us 60 seconds to at least:

1} Tell us you’re “still looking into it” (lame, but right now i’d take it)

or

2} Tell us all that "we are wasting our very precious time and energy as Blizzard Entertainment Inc. intends to do absolutely nothing to correct the issue and make it’s paying customers (who, by the way as Guild Leaders, help keep subs up during unpopular xpacs for free) happy."

You’re welcome …?

/eye roll

Fumel-arathor · December 2, 2018, 4:16am

Yeah, I’m sure they won’t change the loot thing, but these were Greenstone’s suggestions, and I wasn’t going to edit them.

Since Blizz asked for continued feedback, I figure it’s good to highlight feedback that’s already been given, even if some of it is outdated and/or hasn’t a snowball’s change of being implemented. Not everyone has time to read all the posts in this thread, and I’m sure even the Blues have forgotten these old posts by now. So I dredge one up every now and then just to get them a second look.

I like to imagine that the reason it’s taking so long for a “fix” is that there’s a team working on implementing a pile of improvements, not just a fix for the permissions. That is, when I’m not sliding into pessimism and wondering what I’m doing here.

anon97867278 · December 2, 2018, 4:28am

Imma imma immaa… Eh. I’l drop by randomly, but :
IMMA … IMMA … IMMA GONNA BE…

Hmm. maybe you should actually BE something instead of belittling those who support you.

FYI, I don’t run a guild where this is a problem (two alt guilds for hording, only my alts included).

I get that you’re trying to be Pollyanna about this, but Activision gave NO reason for these changes. It wasn’t because “there was abuse going on with the guild permissions”, it wasn’t "There was an exploit we detected (against the player)(which is never a bug).

You were given NO reason for the change. You have not gotten any meaningful response about the change. YOU DON’T MATTER .

Also, ignore the fact that the new “guild and communities” pane is buged and worthless, but Hey. u do u.

You’ve been posting for almost half a year and gotten NOTHING in response. THEY DON’T CARE.

Druunah-ravencrest · December 2, 2018, 5:50am

And here we thought we had issues…

Delirium-bronzebeard · December 2, 2018, 9:40am

here i am at 330am reading again the forum , no blue posts no green posts no nothing! Blizz we have done our part, we have givin u tons of feedback and suggestions we have played nice. All here are adults posting real issues about things that SHOULD BE IMPORTANT TO YOU but still we linger in nothingness. I lack things to say i fear nothing matters to you devs. Do you all not care about your product and how people interact with it? It baffles my mind how we have been unanswered so far. Let me be blunt Blizz…do you have no guts to face us? Have you no honor in your game design? Do the people who pay real money to YOUR COMPANY not matter at all? I WANT ANSWERS! IM NOT GOING AWAY! COWARDS HIDE IN SHADOWS!

Nêlsôn-greymane · December 2, 2018, 3:01pm

Not surprising

Fumel-arathor · December 2, 2018, 4:33pm

Yeah, I could be a pessimist who just throws my hands in the air and gives up. But I’m not.

Players asked for Vanilla servers for years, despite other people (including Blizzard devs) saying, “It’ll never happen.” That’s an extreme example. I have faith we’re being heard and the issues will be addressed–as long as we don’t drop the subject. The devs are working on a lot of things all the time. We need to keep this wheel squeaking so it doesn’t keep getting pushed to the bottom of the list.

Dlaciabia-sisters-of-elune · December 2, 2018, 6:12pm

Heh…if we stop posting here it won’t be because of bizarre trolling, so, there’s that.

Izael-illidan · December 2, 2018, 6:39pm

Yea it sucks, it’s super buggy too. People always showing online even though they have been off for 10+ days.

Nêlsôn-greymane · December 2, 2018, 7:30pm

Yeah that’s really annoying.

Fumel-arathor · December 3, 2018, 1:46am

I’ve been reading through this thread (like I’ve been for months now) and I just can’t help quoting this post from Aug 8:

I’m pleased to say the thread is not locked, even now, nearly four months later. Pages aren’t a thing now, but there are currently 2297 posts–this one should be 2298. Has the problem been swept under the rug? Well, it does kind of look that way. But I still prefer to assume it’s a matter of priorities and resources.

Should Blizzard dedicate more resources to WoW so things can get fixed sooner? I know I think so, and I’ll wager anyone else with a problem thinks so as well. But I’m not in charge here. All I can do is keep plugging away.

Lucyclawless-durotan · December 3, 2018, 4:04pm

Well that’s reassuring. So in 3-5 years we can expect some improvements on this issue. Meanwhile this thread will be the longest thread in WoW forums History, expanding into volumes.

Mahatma-blackwater-raiders · December 3, 2018, 6:10pm

Well, a difference between this issue and classic servers is that classic servers got a “wall of NO” (from both the players and the devs) for most of the years that people were asking for them, whereas the devs have acknowledged that this is something that is not working properly and only a few trolls have dismissed the concerns expressed by guild masters.

Nêlsôn-greymane · December 3, 2018, 8:50pm

Maybe we can reach 10,000 posts?

Druunah-ravencrest · December 3, 2018, 8:55pm

Bingo.

Also bingo.

I’d like to also respectfully remind everyone that although this thread is the “mega thread” regarding this topic, it’s not the only thread here or elsewhere on this topic (please see my previous postings for examples)

There is apparently a LOT wrong with this xpac. I’ve been reading threads here and elsewhere on everything supposedly wrong with BfA from Azurite Power to PvP that’s “broken” in BfA.

For me, I just want Blizzard to let us know one way or the other what’s up with guild permissions so I can either ‘pull the plug’ or prepare to recruit.

This dumbed down “is officer” nonsense may somehow work for some guilds (apparently all those guilds magically exist on one realm, but whatever) however it will NEVER work for our guild.

I for one just need to move on one way or another.

Fumel-arathor · December 3, 2018, 10:30pm

Continuing my read-through. The very vast majority of posts are just asking for the permissions to be reverted or at least separated and pulled out from under the “is officer” umbrella. Here is a post made on Aug 9 from a software developer speculating on the cause of all this:

Beteljuice:

People keep saying that Bliz WANTED to nerf guilds and force their players into the new communities concept (which is still in its infancy and unsurprisingly clunky as it awaits the inevitable improvements). If we want any hope of continuing to enjoy this game, we must assume that Bliz is not simply acting as an evil empire looking to ignore as many players as they can. As a software developer who has lived through several of these disasters at various large companies, let me present an alternate timeline for how this all happened:
1. Bliz game designers listened to users, and proposed the new Communities functionality to allow cross-server groups of like minded people.
2. The scaled-back Communities interface was designed, and someone decided that there are synergies with the Guild functionality.
3. Some gung ho coder saw that there were a number of flags for various permissions in the guild data. Since each flag requires data space and maintenance overhead, they proposed that all the flags could be replaced by an IsOfficer flag, simplifying the code measurably.
4. The proposal was OKed because the people who should have analysed the ramifications in much more depth were busy with the thousands of other changes in BfA, and didn’t think of all the scenarios where the granularity was necessary.
5. The code and database changes were made, and the data was converted into the new layout. Not enough noise was made soon enough in the alpha and beta to get it reverted before it was too late.

This brings us to the prepatch. GMs suddenly realize that they have been cut off at the knees. There is massive backlash (although I suspect that GMs make up maybe 1% of the player base, so what we consider massive is less so to Bliz). However, reverting the flags would require a database change to put back the fields that are now history. A solid rule that smart companies follow during software upgrades is that you NEVER make a database change at the last minute, because it can cause way more damage than you can imagine if anything goes wrong. Thus, I think Bliz is truly listening to us but can’t do anything until the first post-patch. Fixing things like this in a hotfix has probably been the root cause of major fiascos in the past, so no amount of yelling or pleading will make them risk the other 99% of their user base, and they will fix this when the expansion is out and relatively stable. My biggest frustration right now is that I don’t see the downside of Bliz admitting they made a booboo and explaining that the will fix it “soon”, other than the fact that the discussion would undoubtedly immediately turn to trying to name and shame the programmers, which would be misguided.

All that said, add me to the list of GM that are insisting this change be reverted since it is really screwing up my vision of how my guild should work, and causing my guildies conniptions as a result.

Yeah, this may not be anything like what actually happened, but I definitely agree that the changes weren’t intentional. Why do I think they weren’t intentional? Because Blizz never has any problem saying , “Working as intended” if that’s truly what they wanted to happen. Since all the feedback we’ve gotten (as little as it’s been and mostly on other sites) hasn’t once mentioned they wanted guild permissions to work out this way, I have faith the problem(s) will get fixed. Hopefully long before we hit our 5000th post.

Xai-lightbringer · December 4, 2018, 1:50am

Having to use /guildroster sucks please fix these issues