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

[Cladis-korgath]

I somewhat agree with that.

I mean, they are Community “Managers” after all. They’re seeming employed to “manage” the community.
Not have any kind of meaniful dialogue with it.

Responsibilities

• Act as public-facing representative of World of Warcraft and communicate on behalf of the brand across multiple channels and at events both in person and online.

• Contribute to the design and execution of community development programs for World of Warcraft.

• Write blogs as pertains to World of Warcraft.

• Support communication plans and channel management.

• Execute community development projects.

• Build relationships with community partners such as fan sites, influencers, and volunteers.

• Work closely with integrated marketing, web & mobile, and game teams.

• Provide meaningful feedback on the community’s sentiment, concerns, and suggestions.

[Lejk-nagrand (Lejk)]

And?

[Cladis-korgath]

Part of his job does, in fact, include communication and dialog. Not necessarily through the forum, but through other media.

[Tareir-arthas (Tareir)]

I wonder if Blizzard’s internal structures/systems are set up like this?

Do they have employees that can do almost nothing anywhere and then have employees that are marked “Is Officer” that have full access to all data, systems, financials, security, etc.? With nothing in between?

[Lejk-nagrand (Lejk)]

I think we’re on the same side of this debate. Maybe I wasn’t clear in my first post, but I agree with you.

I’ve never really felt like m/any of the Community Managers have any real desire to have a meaningful dialogue with the community, in the forums anyway.

To me it always feel alike they’re are just “managing” us. As per your example, um, for example.
The contributions of CMs in the forum are minimal and are usually self serving.

In my experience at least.

[Cladis-korgath]

I’ve never really felt like m/any of the Community Managers have any real desire to have a meaningful dialogue with the community, in the forums anyway.

We used to have some really good CM’s, in my little opinion. We haven’t had any good ones in a handful of years. Hopefully this next ‘wave’ of CM’s we get will be better than the last handful we had. Losing the last few we had was a blessing.

[Lejk-nagrand (Lejk)]

Well that is a shame.

Though I’ve been playing the game for quite a significant amount of time, it’s only relatively recently that I’ve spent any time on the forums. And I’ve found the CMs contributions… lacking.

Fingers crossed.
All one can do is hope for an improvement.

[Takoda-kul-tiras (Takoda)]

I woke up this morning to this message in Discord.

“Welp, if I wasn’t busy with school and everything. I would pretty much join wow again just to have the guild. Since that’s the most I miss about wow.”

Blizzard, people care about their guilds. Those connections give people a reason to resubscribe. This is particularly true for guilds like mine that have existed for over a decade. We regularly have people returning after a break.

Please give us the tools that we need so that guilds can reach their full potential. We need permissions separated out. We need better recruitment tools. And we need to hear what you are planning.

Are guilds on your radar for 8.2? 9.0? Never? A hotfix?

Are you looking at simply reverting the permissions? Or building a more robust system like many of us have requested?

Are you looking into a full re-design of the in game recruitment tool? Do you think that the current recruitment situation is “functional?”

I don’t mind waiting for the actual in game changes if Blizzard is genuinely committed to treating guilds right. I’d honestly prefer to wait for a really good solution than to have a haphazard one now.

But no matter what the plan is, you need to communicate with guild masters. Blindsiding us is a big part of what created this mess in the first place.

[Brahmina-khadgar (Brahmina)]

If by popping in and not contributing anything beyond “I extended the thread so you guys can stop flooding GD with more threads” is considered a decent response, then sure, you’re right and I apologize.

No, no. The apology is on me. I never meant to imply the response we got was “decent”–only that it was the only response we got.

And I was sincere in my response to your “dead weight” comment, meaning that you made me look at things differently. The only we response we’ve gotten to this thread (in the thread itself) was from “dead weight”, which doesn’t speak well for Blizzard’s opinion of this issue.

[Fumel-arathor (Fumel)]

Here is Irannia’s excellent post from back in August detailing a comprehensive feedback format and then giving that feedback. She first starts off with a discussion about what it’s like to run a guild and how important guilds are to the community. Yes, this is a very long post, but it really is worth the read:

Okay, now that I have time to formulate yet another response for your “we need more feedback.” I came into this post at page 43, and those that have read my posts know that they are long. For warning, this one will be too.

I encourage others to follow this format.

Feature:
How it was used:
How did the changes affect my guild:
Workaround:

I personally don’t care if you are repeating yourself for the up-teenth time. If you feel it is worthy attention, then it’s worth saying again.

In regards to the following request and comment from Ion:

The right way to get this changed we are open to re-adding functionality where it makes sense. I think it’s just a question of getting us feedback, helping us understand what value you were getting running your own guilds, your own communities, and we’ll see what we can do.

The Value in Running a Guild

Truth be told, I do not run my guild, I and my TEAM runs the guild. This is why having the permissions tab as it was, was so important. Different people have different roles, responsibilities, and contribute in different ways.

However, in the spirit of the request….

Over the years I have come to terms with the simple fact that I’m a bit of a workaholic.

Do not misunderstand me in this however, I do not enjoy work, rather I’m a person that if I’m going to put my time, energy and effort into something, then it’s worth doing right and all the way, or it’s not worth doing at all. This makes me very meticulous. This shows not only in my work ethic, but even in the other hobbies I partake in.

Whenever I hear a group of people that want to run their own guild, for one reason or another, and I know they have never ran one before… I laugh. Not to poke fun at them, but rather out of sympathy, because they have no idea the can of worms they are about to open up.

Guilds take a level of commitment, determination and a hell of a lot of work to function. I don’t run a guild because I think it’s fun to do so. I run a guild because of the pride and fulfillment I get seeing it succeed, the friendships made, and people coming together to down some of the harder content in the game. If I never started my guild, these people may have never met each other, played together and so on. There is a sense of pride in that. Guild Leaders are not the only ones privy to this either, but anyone that puts in their efforts to the guild as well.

An example of this is that one of my members met her now husband within our guild. If not for us they may have never met. I know I’m not the only person that can say that. I know this touches close to home because there are the few developers that have had this happen to themselves.

Not only is there the personal aspects to this as well, but there is a bit of a professional one as well, depending on your view point.

However, you originally gave us the ability to run our guilds like a business, now with the new features is just a club.

I’ve found that I learned how to manage people better, and how to showcase strengths and recognize weaknesses in others. I’ve been able to directly translate this at work as a manager. When people ask me what it is that I do 3 nights out of the week, I simply tell others that I manage people for fun… because in essence that is what you are doing.

Same goes for raid leading… hence the running joke of “It’s like herding cats.” It’s not fun, and quite stressful to be honest. However, again the fulfillment comes from watching your hard work and effort come together.

It’s not just about how many people are on your roster, or how many raid teams, RBG teams you have, or how many groups for people are able to do x content. It doesn’t matter if you have 10 people in your guild, or 1,000. It’s about being part of and working toward something together.

Whether you are the “casual player” that only likes to play pet battles and farm, or the “hardcore player” that min maxes and wants the hardest level of game play. Guilds bring these two very different players together in a way that Communities alone won’t do.

I have found over the years that people keep coming back to WoW because of the friendships that they’ve made more than the content of the game itself. Lets face it, WoW is a forever repeating cycle of: level up, get gear, grind rep, get new shiny purple items, new content, new purple shinies, new grind to get new purple shiny (repeat).

When people recall players they recall the guilds that they were in. Over the 11 years that I’ve played I can tell you every guild I have ever been in. I also can recall a people from those guilds, who ran them and so on. When I take a break from the game I don’t come back for the game. I come back for the people.


Now that is out of the way, lets get down to the features.

Feature: View Officer Note

How it was used:
I used this feature to inform my leadership team when someone invited into the guild. We have a two week “Recruit” period. We do this for a couple of reasons. This allows time for the guild to get to know the new member, and the other way around.

If I or an “Officer” isn’t on my “Junior Officers” were able to read these notes and promote accordingly. This also allowed them to read notes on players that may need more help with one aspect of the game than another.

How did the changes affect my guild:
My “Junior Officers” are not able to view these notes any longer without having full “Is Officer” privileges. My Junior Officers are actually “Class Leads” within the guild. They did not have and continue to have full privileges because these players, while capable and trusted, do not need or in some cases want the full responsibility of a full Officer.

Workaround:
I use a non blizzard product: Discord
I now relay information like players that may need a bit of help in a separate board for our Class Leads. Promotions are now handled by myself mostly, as well as roster management in general.

Also looking into the addon GRM for the additional note feature to replace the “Officer Note”


Feature: Edit Officer Note

How it was used:
This ties into viewing the note. My Class Leads would be able to update information regarding specific players.

How did the changes affect my guild:
This option is no longer available so it is not used in the same capacity.

Workaround:
Non Blizzard product used: Discord
Information is now just relayed in the Class Lead board, or is just messaged privately in game.

Also looking into the addon GRM for the additional note feature to replace the "Officer Note"


Feature: Officerchat Speak

How it was used:
This is something that my Officers have by default. This allows my Officers to speak amongst themselves during raids or other group content in game privately. This mainly pertains to a strategy that may not be working, of if there is an issue with a player that is not following direction or mechanics, so on and so forth. It was also used to address other concerns in the guild as well in the moment they were happening.

We originally had our Class Leads in this channel as well, but we found it was a situation of to many cooks in the kitchen type of situation. So we decided that it would be best to not have them in the channel as well.

How did the changes affect my guild:
This was something I was hoping to give back to my Class Leads since the guild is expanding to two teams this expansion. With the “Is Officer” umbrella I’m reluctant to do this, and more than likely will not give them this privilege now.

Also now in the advent of not being able to turn this off at a notice, if conversations get to heated. This conversation can persist and I have no way to deescalate this, and basically telling my Officers to table the discussion with out doing just that, or revoking all privileges.

**Note: Regarding listen, If I were able to essentially mute Officers, I would like to be able to still allow them to see the chat. However, I would much rather them be both separate toggles.

Workaround:
None: The Officer channel is very seldom used currently as Raids have yet to be released. So I’m not 100% sure how I’m going to address this if and when this happens.
____________________________________________________

Feature:Edit Guild Info

How it was used:
This houses a brief “About Us” and our Discord information.

How did the changes affect my guild:
It has not affected my guild, as my Officers don’t mess with this. However, this is something I do not like as it should be something, in my opinion, up to the Guild Leader.

Workaround:
None.


Feature: Set MOTD (Message of the Day)

How it was used:
We place current news about the guild and updates on possible needs for the guild vault.

This is a little redundant as the MOTD is lost very quickly in addon spam. I have however noticed that is a little more prevalent in GUI for the guild chat. However, it is still very easily lost as not every opens that window frequently.

How did the changes affect my guild:
This did not affect my guild as my Officers already had access to this. However, there are plenty of guilds that do not hand out that permission.

Workaround:
Use non Blizzard product: Discord.

I place any important information that needs to get blasted out in an “Announcements” section within our Discord server. I get better reach this way as it will alert players.
__________________________________________

Feature: Sorting Last Online by Rank

How it was used:
This allowed me to look at players that have been out of the game for quite some time. We are an Alt friendly guild, so alts are marked in the Public Note. Since I was able to sort players in this way I could see if a player was on an alt more than their marked main quickly than having to scan through the full roster.

How did the changes affect my guild:
It makes my job of roster management a lot harder. Not everyone is good about keeping their notes up to par.

Workaround:
I use /groster to pull up the old GUI to be able to access this sorting method. It’s not hard to do but it’s just an extra step.
________

New Feature: Persistent Guild Chat

How did the changes affect my guild:
It has not affected my guild, and more people seem to like it rather than not. With that being said, I do believe that this should be optional vs mandatory. If it is feasible to be able to give this as an option, I would HIGHLY recommend it.



This is all I have for now. I will post the things I would like to see integrated into the guild systems in a different post. Not only to break this up a bit, but also because frankly I would like to play the game instead of spending my entire evening writing about this for a 4th or 5th time.

In short “The Umbrella of” the “Is Officer” needs to be delinked. When people manage groups of people they look for more tools to make this easier, and instead of giving us more tools you took a bulk of them away.

In the advent of this your players are going to migrate to outside sources to gain some of this functionality back. I know with a fact this is the exact opposite of what was wanted in this.

I would put a tl:dr, but anyone who can’t be bothered to read the post is simply missing out on a very well written commentary.

Fix the permissions, Blizz

[Tixi-moon-guard (Tixi)]

Fix the permissions, Blizz.

[Altherei-wyrmrest-accord (Altherei)]

I just came back here from a thread (one of many probably) about the portal room and its utter lack of utility in the removal of portals to older content areas (such as no Ironforge/TB, CoT, etc.). I will summarize here what I said there:

Your playerbase wants more options Blizz, not fewer. Please stop gutting our choices and railroading us into what you think we ought to be doing. Please step back, stop, and -listen- to us. Whatever the reasons for these changes- all of them- doesn’t really matter at the end of the day because you have a choice to make: are you willing to listen and change?

So in addition to the portal room, please fix the permissions. I won’t be running any kind of guild in WoW until it’s fixed- or we can at least get a Blue to reply beyond ‘we’re looking into it’. It’s been looked into for the better part of a year- it’s past time we got some proper answers, please and thank you.

[Brahmina-khadgar (Brahmina)]

I just came back here from a thread (one of many probably) about the portal room and its utter lack of utility in the removal of portals to older content areas (such as no Ironforge/TB, CoT, etc.).

Yeah. While our issue in this thread is mostly of interest only to Guild Masters, I’m getting the feeling the portal room fiasco is going to be close to as bad as them announcing they were removing flight from WoD and every future expansion. Now I’m starting to wonder what sort of “compromise” they’ll come up with regarding the portals. They’ll open new ones after we grind out another mega-achieve?

Oh, almost forgot: Fix the permissions, Blizz!

[Nêlsôn-greymane]

Can we hit 3000 posts and still be ignored?

Let’s find out.

[Brahmina-khadgar (Brahmina)]

I’d be happier if it didn’t happen that way, but I won’t be surprised if they ignore us until we all drop dead of old age (or they shut the thread down).

Fix the permissions, Blizz.

[Venjin-bronzebeard (Venjin)]

We are Lazarus! One of our Core is back, and another may return as well, meaning WE ARE NOT DEAD YET.

So Blizzard…now I’m looking at you. Those permissions still haven’t been reverted.

[Elenedhel-moon-guard]

Bang goes ANY hope of this guild getting back on its feet any time soon.
Thnx Blizz.
Thanks a LOT!
Flips hair

[Takoda-kul-tiras (Takoda)]

The sun is rising on your guild?!

Sorry, I can’t contain myself sometimes. It’s a problem.

In all seriousness tho, I’m really glad to hear that you’ve had some people return.

[Kaatt-illidan]

And what if you want to give a player control of only ONE of those things without making them a dedicated officer? Why break what isn’t broken?

[Fumel-arathor (Fumel)]

We are Lazarus! One of our Core is back, and another may return as well, meaning WE ARE NOT DEAD YET.

Well, this is definitely nice to see.

But, one player back and another possible returnee isn’t exactly the same as a robust, functioning guild with layered ranks with varying roles and responsibilities based on the permissions they’ve been assigned. (Which is pretty much how nearly everyone posting against this change ran their guilds.)

Fix the permissions, Blizz.