Voting Mechanism- the Clear Choice

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
1

Of all the changes proposed, an Old School Runescape style voting mechanism is the biggest no-brainer, and arguably should be the only change that goes through at all, with every other change being voted on through its process. Below is a helpful FAQ to clear up any confusion.

"What is this voting mechanism?"

It is a way for Blizzard to gauge community support for any given potential change to the game, from starting zone sharding to guild banks, to additional future content. An idea would be proposed, and the community would be given an amount of time, say one month, to vote yes or no. If a super majority at a given threshold, say 75% or more vote yes, the change happens. Otherwise it does not and nothing changes. Every account with at least one level 60 classic character will be able to vote once either yes or no.

"Why is this necessary?"

Because Blizzard is making changes to this project that not everybody agrees with. Whenever Blizzard announces a change, some people like it, some people don’t. An untold number have no idea these arguments are even taking place. Few, if any posters trust Blizzard’s judgement about anything. The voting mechanism puts the power into the hands of the people who actually play the game. No more random changes by Blizzard with no notice or way to prevent it. This way, everyone is notified and given an opportunity to voice their take, either yes or no. Most ideas would presumably be taken from popular suggestions on the forums.

"But I don’t want it, No!, No changes! Let’s vote whether or not to implement the system," etc.

I admire your passion, but there’s no way to know whether or not the majority of players feel this way except to implement the system and to make the first vote whether or not to abolish the system. If 75% or more want to, the system will end right there. If No Changers are truly the majority, they will have no issue getting to 60 in disproportionate numbers during the first voting time. Otherwise, we’ll have the infrastructure to discuss all other potential changes, such as loot trading. We could also revisit abolishing the vote at any time.

"What about issues that will affect launch, like starting zone sharding?"

This is the one hiccup in this plan as no one could possibly be 60 before classic is released and so these issues cannot be voted on in this way. One possibility is to allow only legacy accounts that still contain a character that was 60 during vanilla to vote on this. Another is to forgo the level requirement of the vote, make an in-game announcement and a website poll. The most likely thing to happen is that Blizz will simply choose to continue with this particular set of changes, particularly the ones which will be removed after the first few weeks.

"Players from retail or other noobs who hate classic will vote to sabotage it on purpose, or make it easier for themselves"

It is very unlikely that anyone who hates vanilla WoW would devote the time, patience or effort to get to 60, just to troll polls about a game they do not play or even hate. Even if a few or a few hundred dedicated idiots do this, they will never have the numbers to influence the vote by more than a few percentage points, and any given change would necessarily be what the vast majority of players want. If 75% of max level players want a change, chances are it’s a good one. The best part is how easy this is on No Changers-- they just have to vote no every time no matter what! What could be simpler?

Thank you for your time. I look forward to reading what will no doubt be well-reasoned comments not covered by the FAQ. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone.

1 Like
2

most players, even when only accounting for those who hit level 60, aren’t good game designers; they’d quite likely make the game become even more imbalanced than it already is

1 Like
3

this. sometimes people dont understand the implications of a change. people are pretty short sighted .

3 Likes
4

A valid worry, but many would argue that even Blizzard’s in-house game developers do not understand good game design and so there’s really not a whole lot of room to go down. I would also reiterate that not only would a player with a 60 have to enjoy the game enough to dedicate the time sink, but they would also understand the game well enough to have a valid opinion on what any given change would mean.

Another advantage of the month long voting period is that it gives time for people to argue on the forums and lay out all the points for and against any issue before voting.

Lastly, we don’t have to speculate about whether or not this system would work. OSRS has adopted this system and is doing arguably better than ever. It has more players than RS3 and annoying or unworkable design flaws have been removed, and new, well-received content comes out every now and then. People are very happy playing OSRS. This would basically be the best-case scenario for Classic. The nature of the system is conservative enough that even if 74% of people want a change, it still doesn’t go through.

5

I would much rather just present ideas and let blizzard decide based on the actual merits of the idea what gets changed.

6

if blizzard’s developers would make bad changes, and the players would democratically make bad changes, then the safest thing to do is to have no changes
in fact, having no changes gives the players more of an incentive to complain about the game’s flaws, which gives blizzard more of an incentive to make Classic+(on different servers) well after Classic WoW comes out, which those complainers would probably play on if it were made right

either way, it’d probably be safer if they designed Classic+ themselves than if they implemented whatever the community democratically votes on

and there are so, so many things that can go wrong with one single change; I don’t feel like going through the effort of giving you a good example, but if you in particular remember me from last year or so, then you should know that I of all people would know what I’m talking about when i say this

and, what more, many things that were considered to be common knowledge about vanilla WoW back then still considered common knowledge about vanilla WoW now, even if said knowledge is outdated
such as: most people think that shadow priests aren’t going to be phased out in favor of 13/18/20 priests that spend almost all of their time and mana in raids healing people
and guild banks; people can make threads with thousands of replies about guild banks, but the one that actually points out a legitimate argument against them(that if you don’t make them be too expensive for lvl 1 bank alts to bother with them, then people’s lvl 1 bank alts are going to use them for all that extra storage space, but if you do make them too expensive for lvl 1 bank alts to bother with them, then even raiding guilds won’t bother with them), just gets ignored after being posted on page 1, and doesn’t get mentioned throughout the entire thread
that actually happened, by the way

giving a month long voting period allows time for the nochanges guys to foam at the mouth and brew up a tornado on the forums against everyone who supports the change, and they probably wouldn’t be able to stop all of the changes anyway

and I’ve heard bad things about OSRS… though I don’t remember most of the specifics
and the devs, iirc, said during blizzcon 2018 that they aren’t making changes, though Ion did, iirc, throw out the possibility of a Classic+ further down the road

1 Like
7

No. Changes aren’t for Classic. Changes are for an unestablished game. Vanilla is already very well established. People have very particular expectations of that. Changes are for retail or WoW: 2.

“But RuneScape did it” is a crappy reason.

4 Likes
8

Hang on a moment… aside from not understanding why we’re talking about a voting mechanism for changes, the fact that we’re talking about a voting system for changes bothers me a bit.

Y’see, I thought the whole idea of making Classic WoW was to allow players to experience, as close as possible, the original game in what we now call “Vanilla” form.

Blizzard have even come out publicly stating this.

Now I see things of talking about guild banks and future content and so on, to be voted on by the players.

This how the current game ended up where it is today, because Blizzard listened to the players.

No. Thanks.

Classic WoW needs to remain a living museum, if you like, of Vanilla WoW. It needs to remain unaltered, so that players who decide in a year, or two, or five, from now that they want to experience that game, that it’s there and available for them to do so.

This precludes making changes, or adding new content.

The only acceptable method of adding anything to Classic WoW is to make a new set of servers with that feature or content available, and allow one-way transfers from existing servers to the new ones.

Even this will disrupt and break communities apart, so in and of itself even this solution is a very poor compromise.

I’m sorry, but I’ve had about as much of this “we want changes” stuff as I’m ready to take. If you want changes, the retail game is that way ---->

3 Likes
9

False dilemma. the bad changes are weeded out by the inherently high bar changes have to muster.

I also support this idea.

I remember the thought you put into your document, but you are underestimating the care people go to when hashing out reasons on the OSRS forum. Many things, from game balance to fun to what purpose is served are discussed in depth. Some popular ideas, like sailing were wanted but the idea just wan’t good enough. The new raids (which are most of what get approved) are very fun and well-received.

Be careful you’re not just repeating a false narrative by a no changer who doesn’t even play OSRS. It’s alive and well.

Incorrect. This system is brand new. At no time did Blizzard ever talk issues through and make sure the players wanted them. They simply perceive issues or react to complaints, usually in ways that make people mad in the short and long term. If anything, this is an argument for my position, so thank you.

10

Sorry Missuspowpow, they stated that Classic will be a living museum of the original game "warts and all, for better or worse ".
If people don’t like the old school style, way classes work, or many other things that have been brought up on these forum maybe another game would be the best choice for them.
I have a feeling that there are more than enough people who will love the game without changes.
I know I will.

2 Likes
11

theres nothing to change though. they are going by the guiding principals of warts and all.

they are releasing it as it was, not only to have a valid legal claim to stop private servers cause of people not being able to hide behind well we are hosting a game that doesnt exist anymore.

its also to give rest to people asking for vanilla legacy servers.

there is a reason they are trying to do as little changes as possible to get the game released.

2 Likes
12

Developers making a radical change of what their project goal is usually a bad idea.
The intent and drive of the project has already been established, worked on for awhile, and getting close to beta.

It’s too late in the cycle to change this project. But after release, if they want to go in that direction OP I would be interesting but I don’t see it or something like wow2 happening anytime soon.
I see expansion retro servers happening first to pull in more private server players.