Please bring back the ability to set individual permissions flags. You’ve destroyed the ability to create more advanced rank systems within guilds.
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/thread
I’ve gone back to July for this quote. This poster has an interesting take on what they’d like to see regarding permissions:
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My two year old daughter, upon seeing the state of guild permissions, “Daddy, wouldn’t it just be more intelligent to follow the principle of least privilege?”
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LOL. 
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Seeing my fb reminders about our guildsofwow page is really starting to depress me.
Last year Grahams and I were just talking about how we just need to wait a little longer to reopen the recruiting floodgates once everything is fixed.
Now, she’s asking me what other games are out there.
C’mon bliz. How hard is it to put the fix into the PTR already.
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I would guess they either changed something on the backend that actually makes this hard, or it’s so down low on the priority list, that they consider the issue effectively dead.
I think it’s a combination of these. Apparently it’s really entangled with the communities feature (Ion even said as much) and that’s making it very difficult to sort out. Then, of course, it’s not technically “game breaking” so the priority isn’t as high with the devs as it is with us.
Still, I would argue that Guilds are the lifeblood of this game. It’s an MMORPG, and the content is designed to be done with other folks. Yes, there are the various “finder” tools, but one only has to casually glance at the forums to see those aren’t the best solutions in many cases. “Do it with guildies” is a standard answer to complaints about LFD and LFG.
If WoW loses its guilds, it loses the major glue holding people together. People are what make this game, not systems, not loot, not characters, not expansions. Without the players, there’s no WoW.
Keep that in mind, Blizz, when you’re prioritizing what to fix next.
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While I DO appreciate the rest of what you said, at the end of the day if this paragraph is correct, none of the following you said will matter to a development house. Non-game breaking issue that is gonna be super hard to fix? Issue is gonna just be straight up shelved forever.
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Ion did say they were “actively” working on a fix.
Then again, Ion is a lawyer.
The optimist in me is hoping you’re wrong about it being “shelved forever”, but the pessimist isn’t letting me hold my breath.
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I wouldn’t call this a case of pessimism, more realism. The fact remains players by this point have been working around the issue and the longer that’s the case, the less of a problem this becomes. I’m not sure these specific sets of permissions are as much the glue that you think they might be to the game. People have mostly been quitting over entirely separate issues and those issues I imagine are much higher on the dev’s priority lists of getting resolutions to. If the dev workload is rather high, then the guild issue becomes sorta just… forgotten. It’s the reality of fixing things, priorities. I mean look at the player base itself. Vulpera and High Elfs generate far more posts and threads than this issue, and this thread hasn’t broken past the original posting. People are weird in what they make a priority. But if the players aren’t making this a priority, why should Blizz? The answer… well…
I get where you’re coming from. And I agree insofar as players aren’t directly quitting because of guild issues. Outside of a few who have, the guild issues seemingly have little direct impact on subscription numbers. However, I think its more important to look at the indirect impact. And I think it is reasonable to assume that many players have indirectly quit because of the neglect Blizzard has shown to guilds.
This is first an MMO. Without other people to play with, the game doesn’t have the same appeal, and certainly doesn’t have the same longevity. How many people have posted on the forums something to the effect of “I’m quitting because my guild fell apart, and I don’t have anyone to play with anymore?” I’ve personally seen many of these posts.
Consider then how the post might be different if there was a good system in place to support guilds. The player might have been able to find another guild rather than unsubbing. Or perhaps their guild wouldn’t have fallen apart in the first place. If this scenario is multiplied thousands of times across many different individuals, it absolutely makes a HUGE impact on sub numbers and revenue.
Things we’ve been pushing for, like a functional guild finder, management tools, and proper game support for guilds, provide a framework for the thing that makes WoW so special - interaction with other people. Provide meaningful connections, and people (on average) will have more fun, play for longer, and spend more money than they would have without those connections.
In short, players frequently don’t take the time to think about how all these things are connected. Frankly, I don’t blame other players for that. But Blizzard should take the time because it’s their job.
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I didn’t mean to imply that the permissions are the glue. My intent was to point out how important guilds are–and the permissions are part of what keeps guilds solvent.
You are 100% right that players have been quitting for many reasons that have nothing to do with guilds. Those reasons indeed require more of the devs’ attention. (I could argue that most of those reasons–and our permission problem–are totally the devs’ fault, but finger pointing isn’t productive.)
However, the point I was trying to make is that guilds (and the friends players make in them) keep people playing even when the game isn’t at its best. Therefor, even though the guild problems don’t seem to be as important as most of the other issues with the game, I would argue they are just as vital and should not be ignored.
The good news is Blizz has revamped the guild finder at long last (not sure when that’s going live). We can only hope Ion wasn’t lying, and they’re working on the permissions as well. If we’re lucky, they’re even looking at adding some of the other terrific ideas presented in this thread.
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I don’t disagree, but gonna throw an analogy out here.
A building with some structural issues is on blazing fire. You gotta put the fire out before you can then begin to work on fixing the structural issues because in the short term, that fire is gonna cause way more damage as it will consume everything unless dealt with. Right now, there are fires that Blizz is working on putting out. I agree structural issues like the guild permissions ARE important to the overall health of the game, and I want them fixed. Without going into specifics, I also know/feel there are other more important issues that need resolved that are doing way more active damage in the now.
I guess that’s all I’m really trying to say.
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I agree and wish those issues had never cropped up. Since they have, I wish Blizz would hire–or reassign–enough people to take care of everything.
Now I’m thinking of a Rolling Stones song…
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You and me both. I’ve not been thrilled with their recent firing spree’s as of late.
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This is a good analogy. I would just change one thing. Fixing guild issues is like putting up a firewall to protect part of the building from the fire. The actual fire still needs attention. But why let the whole building burn when you can protect part of it?
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i’d say firewalls are notoriously hard to do correctly in a burning building, and it is often more efficient to just brute force the fires out.
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Mmm. I’m not a firefighter, and my fire knowledge is limited to “Don’t stand in the fire.” So perhaps the better analogy is closing the fire door. Regardless, the broader point of preventing the spread of damage when you can remains.
I view it as a form of triage. Guilds are capable of keeping people entertained while Blizzard is trying to fix other things, but only if we actually have the tools to do so. If you’re busy laughing at bad Jaina puns with your guild, you don’t notice nearly as much that your rotation is boring.
If restoring guild tools was fairly simple, I suspect they would have already restored them - precisely because they desperately needed to triage the beginning of BFA. My guess is that it is proving to be quite complicated on the technical side because of…code…stuff… (I’m also not a programmer.)
I honestly don’t think they are neglecting guilds right now. I think they did neglect guilds from sometime around Cata until now, and the consequences of that neglect has really caught up to them. But as far as right now goes, I’m inclined to take Ion’s word that they are working on it.
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So what the **** Blizzard?