Try this one out. Do you think it’s possible that nobody quit because of the dungeon finder until after Cataclysm launched?
Very clearly people say they didn’t like it when it was current. I never saw that feedback at the time - but I wouldn’t have - I was too busy spamming dungeons at a breakneck pace with my brothers and anyone else we could pick up along the way.
During cataclysm is when I saw the most kinda of toxic behavior in random dungeons. So it’s possible that someone who didn’t like it at first, finally quit over it after cataclysm was in place.
I don’t think there’s any data that could prove my hypothesis, what do you think?
Vote from phone provider, vote from home wifi, vote from micdonalds wifi, exc. You can easily, as a single individual, vote multiple times with using public internet. You can also use VPN to do this, add in a bot using the vpn and you can end uo with hundreds of votes, if not thousands.
Blizzard could advertise it in- game, on Twitter, their web page, etc and then require players to log in to their battle.net account to take part in the poll.
It’s definitely possible. I remember Ghostcrawler made a blog post that gave some insight on cancellation feedback at the time, and he mentioned that in game features are rarely the reason people give.
I wish I could find it, I’ll link it to you if I do.
I don’t know, that seems like a lot of work to me. The botnet actually seems easier than driving from hotspot to hotspot.
I’ve never tried to script VPN logins but I always assumed the software would try to detect that kind of activity. It’s disruptive to the service they’re trying to provide. I could be wrong here, I’d defer to your experience if you indeed have it.
His entire line of reasoning is absurd. Someone is going to go through that convoluted process on multiple websites to manipulate polls that mean nothing to Blizz?
You think the Classic devs care if 70% of Reddit users want dungeon finder? Blizz didn’t even poll their own playerbase. Dungeon finder wasn’t included on any survey they ever sent out. They simply decided out of the blue to remove it based on their own person whim.
Never said it would be perfect, and the chances of it being the same player with multiple accounts, when picking at random, are slim. And compared to an open poll, thats a lot better chances not to get multiple votes from one person.
Right, my point is I don’t think there’s any way for us to know for sure what the biggest factor in those sub cancellations was. Blizzard had all the data, and they added LFR, scenarios, etc and only now a decade later are trying out Wrath without LFD. I remain skeptical of their reasons.
They had a year of Wrath without dungeon finder. There’s nothing to try out. It’s already been done and the old devs (the ones who made the biggest mmo ever) added dungeon finder in Wrath. And in fact wanted it even earlier.
My point being no poll is going to be iron clad, when there are multiple polls with similar results from different sources on the same topic outright dismissal is short sighted.
Vpn typically do have some protection vs botting, but you could easily slow down the bot to say, change log in every minute instead of doing it every few seconds to reduce the chances of it getting caught and blocked, and just run the bot in the background for 24 hours. Thats still 1440 votes each day (60×24).
Public polling is easily manipulated. Which is why i dont think it should be public, but random invitation only and only 1 vote per invite. It severely reduces the chances of one person putting in multiple votes.
Dismissing any information is short sighted, but it’s important to consider the quality of the data. In the case of online polls, they aren’t representative, they overlap, they are run by communities that may influence the views of their members or attract members with similar views.
There are tons of reasons not to highly value that kind of info.
The problem is people keep saying LFD will kill the community. Yeah, XIV had it from the start yet that didn’t hurt the socialization at all. That’s the point of this whole back and forth. LFD won’t hurt it unless you choose to suddenly stop talking to people for some reason?
Btw, not too many talk in dungeons there unless they say they’re new. No one sits and chats, they do it in main cities much like people spew nonsense in Org/SW. It’s the same thing.
WoW has a hostile community that is well known to the gaming community and that is brought upon yourselves. Don’t be shocked if no one wants to socialize.
What matters is if it means something to the individual. If they belief they can change blizzards mind by rigging the polls, and they know how to. They will do it if they are obsessed with the issue enough.
Dont underestimate the nonsence obsession will cause someone to do, or just to troll, as seen in the video i linked.
There is no uncertainty, we didn’t see a spike in cancellations until well into Cata when LFD had been out for a long time. So we can attribute that not to LFD but changes made in Cata.
What I like to point out (I’ve done it before) is there have been multiple polls showing varying levels of support for LFD - but they ALL show support. Even ones hosted by streamers who are anti-LFD. I’ve yet to see a poll showing the opposite. Nobody even has the energy to lie about it.
That says something even if the rest of the data is t exactly 100% reliable. And again, if there are polls showing a majority of respondents don’t want LFD, please someone link them so I can take a look.
