Forums Should NOT be used for Feedback to Dev

#0 - Jan. 2, 2009, 4:02 a.m.

We are all giving feedback to GC through forums, endlessly repeating the same thing over and over about healing in PvP.

Redundant posts that he doesn't have to answer because he has the excuse of having to read through thousands of threads a day doesn't get anything done.

What do you guys think of this idea: Create a separate site, maintained by Blizzard, for WoW which is similar to the change.gov website? Especially the section where you can submit questions to be addressed. The Google Moderator tool which was used to do that would allow us to select questions/issues that we think are valuable and need to be addressed by the Dev community. That way GC would have a really easy time for finding common questions/issues rather than having to filter manually by himself.

Come on GC, since you read every thread, you have to admit that a system like that would be a helluva lot easier than filtering through the massive amount of threads here.

It's obvious from the number of threads here that the player community wants to communicate directly with you, and I think that a Google Moderator style would be much better than forums, which are really meant as a mob style of communication.

What do you guys think?

Ghostcrawler

#5 - Jan. 2, 2009, 5:50 a.m.

One of the most valuable things we get out of these forums is seeing players interact with each other. The community is merciless at shooting down bad ideas or telling someone they are complaining about nothing. It is relatively easy to tell when something is a non issue. (Now you have to be careful with the flip side -- just because a lot of vocal players agree doesn't mean something is an issue either.) For subjective issues, like whether you are having fun, it is even more useful. It is also useful to see areas of the game that players are confused about.

Keep in mind that the forums are a tool that we have for collecting feedback. But they are not the only tool and perhaps not even the most powerful tool. We certainly understand that the forums aren't an accurate cross-section of players, and that content players tend to post less.

Ghostcrawler

#25 - Jan. 2, 2009, 9:18 p.m.

Q u o t e:
If other players disagree with you, Blizzard does not need to act.

That is over-simplifying things a bit. Even the best ideas tend to attract a few naysayers or outright trolls. Don't liken the forum process too much to a democracy -- you all aren't voting on changes. You are providing feedback so that we can make informed decisions. Sometimes those decisions still won't be what you want.

That is why you (we) have to actually read all of the messages. If someone tries to shoot down a legitmiate concern with a very faulty argument, then the fact that the second person is disagreeing is pretty irrelevant. On the other hand, if someone posts a quick and angry message (probably because they just came out of a bad experience in game) and several other players logically and persuasively counter that argument, then yes, that is a good case of us probably not needing to act. (Or perhaps the fact that the person had a bad experinece at all means something is sitll amiss.)

Even if lots of smart players agree, we still might not make a change. Perhaps we think the problem will work itself out because of some other change we have made or are about to make. Perhaps we think that we (or the community) will come up with a better solution given a little more time to chew on the problem. Perhaps the change would be technically difficult, too confusing or otherwise at odds with the direction we want to take WoW.

Tigole said once that the burden of fixing problems in the game shouldn't fall on the community. That's our job. But some players like to provide feedback or even make suggestions. If that's you, great, we'd love to hear what you have to say.