People chatting between each other, but like, 3 guys talking and, dead thread.
How’s that a council? Isn’t it supposed to be a group of elected people that represent the playerbase and go through votes, debate, presentation of “proposals of discussion” and then, to be agreed upon by the majority in the Council? Like the congress?
I’d have expected some posts to be “players insight” then these council members gather the real data, filtering the garbage post and doomsayers, to propose “discussion topics” with actual data and not “Well I think” but “Over the last week, a total of X people have discussed the topic Y in session, and presented arguments in favor/disapproval of the initial pitched idea, from that, the council assembles today to discuss the findings of this week’s discussion based on the votes/comments/statistical data from the game” (bc many will just say lies like “over 50% of players quit bc the game isn’t free” or some BS bellular would clickbait for.
This council truly feels like, a waste of the resources present on this page…
Where are the spreadsheets, where are the argumentation and counterpoints for the changes done/requested? Where’s the Vocal Group commenting on what they think about the Council’s common agreements? This ain’t a council, it’s a tea party. I sent a request expecting to actually gather data from the people here, make posts for others to comment on, filter and through the use of statistics and debate sessions, address the points given for and against. To then, propose the pitch to the Council as a whole and find common solutions, isn’t that what they should be doing instead of patting each other on the head?
the point is to pretend blizz are listening to us. basically it’s a slap to the face to us. we know they don’t listen, we know they aint gonna listen to no council. it’s literally just a front to try and calm people down and act like they are going to do the right thing when in reality they just gonna continue to do the same ole bs and milk the money until more people quit for good.
thats just my 2c of course. why i say that? because this kind of bs has been going on for years why only now since the lawsuits? since people went to ff14 in droves? i mean yea people are getting really fed up with the same ole bs.
Dude, I didn’t create this post to get Doomsayers going “we know they don’t listen, we know this is just a cow farm for Bobby wallet muahahaha”
They’re humans, they do read, they “do listen”, but we aren’t 5 people, we’re millions, and this is US, not zawarudo (cringe)
I’m questioning the idea of what an actual Council is vs what this tea party is
But fr, don’t mention FFXIV, i’m sick of it, it’s not that great, I’ve seen it, the store is even fuller of BS, we’re not discussing other games here or paranoid theories, this is a thread about what the COUNCIL IS / SHOULD BE. Please, any deviation from that, is welcome to be excluded as it is of no concern
The original posting outlines that the council is supposed to be just a forum for selected individuals to have discussions with themselves + game developers (with the possibility of it being live chats).
The game developers are the ones who at the end of the day design the game. The council (and players in general) simply provide feedback + suggestions for them to read and possibly implement.
If the council is to be 100 players then it is physically impossible to get them to unanimously agree on all decisions. So voting by council is basically never a possibility.
they aint gonna listen bro. 1. we’ve had the same issues with even good feed back given only for them to completely neglect. Shadowlands covenants is a prime example. 2. again i’ve stated WHY only now are they “listening” there are motives behind it even if they are starting to listen.
i didn’t say they had to cater to every single thing players want you must appease your majority after all this isn’t a f2p game were paying for a product in the end.
sorry to say like stated already it PR stunt bruh. don’t get your hopes up.
Idk where they would get said data. I know “google” it, but a council doesn’t just collect data. A council takes various resources presented and make an argument for their constituents (in this case the player base) desires/needs. The council should not be expected to gather data for everyone else.
For example, how is the council suppose to get the data for better honor gains for PvP gear? A straw poll? Well that is inherently biased since taking a poll of just forums can give skewed responses. They can take the opinions they see and voice them but data needs to be gathered by Blizzard for a better sample otherwise it’s always going to be “opinion”.
There is even disagreement if the council should have a discord, a widely used program, to have discussion. Knowing that, the onus needs to be on Blizzard for actual data. The council merely is a centralized place to talk, because let’s be honest a lot of the posts in the forums are just circular arguments or pointless bickering over something that wasn’t even the main point.
Some danger hair community manager thought it up and now everyone is forced to go along with it despite it being a waste of everyone’s time and attention
They’re just supposed to have discussions. Everything has been discussed on these forums, but maybe Blizzard is so out of touch they believe that these hand-picked players will come up with lots of fresh, new ideas.
For sure they need to know why millions of players have left the game, but this council isn’t the place to get those answers.
The council is idealistically a way to concentrate feedback and have constructive discussions between a diverse panel of players who voice there opinions, concerns, experiences and ideas.
In reality it is a cop out in community management. Blizzard can’t help but see a mob when looking at any body of the community. In these kinds of setting it is nearly impossible to separate people opinions and thoughts without having people dedicated to pick though hundreds of post to try and find actionable or constructive feedback.
The fact is a lot of feedback isn’t actionable or realistic when considering the time constraints and labor hours it takes to implement new content and features. On top of that the Activision Blizzard’s executives have made it clear they will cut labor in a heart beat and still expect the same level and schedule of production from the developers even if they were to cut labor significantly.
So to try and produce more actionable feedback and not haft to manage what are a less the constructive community forums they have chosen to try and focus there community intake. I am personally not a fan of it as an appointed individual frequently speaks for themselves or a small group of likeminded individuals. It would be nice to believe that this council is evenly formed with diverse and level headed individuals but it is hard to believe when WoW has so many different people who all like to experience the game different ways.
In reality the council forums are just a place the developers will feel safe engaging with players. As to what kind of impact it will have remains to be seem but I doubt it will drastically change anything any time soon so as for how it affects all of us… it doesn’t really.
They rejected (or didn’t bother to seek out) anyone in the community that does that kind of work. Bellular’s crew? Preach? I’d even take Asmongold or Taliesin on a rainy day.
Right now the Council forum just looks like a restricted subset of General’s day to day topics. Dunno if it’s a good or bad thing, but I certainly don’t feel it’s making a difference.
If everyone was a well-known high achiever and/or streamer theorycrafter, people like that are a tiny minority of players. In no way could they represent a cross-section of the playerbase.
They absolutely could represent the playerbase while providing mathematical facts to back up any push back to the devs. To imply otherwise is to misunderstand how representation works.
This is why I have little faith in the council, even before today’s crapstorm.
They need to hold the dev’s feet to the fire like Asmon and pretty much every vet player at this point, but in all likelihood they won’t, or will accept these bs compromises.
They wanted to appear like they’re willing to listen to us so they came up with a way to quarantine a bunch of Blizzard friendly types into their own forum so the devs don’t have to talk to the unwashed (and sometimes unfriendly) masses.
They absolutely could not. What percentage of players are famous? Are streamers? Are theorycrafters? That is the percentage of players that should be chosen from those groups to be in that group.
Putting only the highest achievers in that group would mean that only the interests of those people would be considered. They would be jockeying for more consideration and resources for others who play like them, while the overwhelming majority of players would be ignored and marginalized by that plan.
That’s not how real research works. That would be how you would construct an echo chamber.