Welcome to the Forums. We Love You.

As I was just leveling my alt worgen druid in Ashenvale, something came to mind I felt like sharing with you.

Firstly, we as a community team haven't had quite the chance to post on the forums lately as we'd like. Prior to Cataclysm we were able to engage in discussions more frequently, and it's our goal to get back to that point. One thing you should know though, is we're working very hard to get you the information you want in a timely manner, presented in a fun, personalized, yet professional way. With the great new front page blog system our web team was able to put together, we've been able to relay information to you on upcoming features and content like never before; and we're able to better show you some amazing art and comics from your peers in the community, and high-quality Blizzard and Trading Card Game art.

We've also spent a lot of time improving the documentation of hotfixes, as well as improving the layout, readability, and documentation of patch notes. We're working closer with our developers than ever to make sure you hear from them too. Just the same, our team is reaching out more via different social media outlets to make sure the community gets the information you need through whatever type of social platform you prefer. This goal even extends to our Explorers' League Journals we do as community recaps, where we often feature cool World of Warcraft stuff we find out on the web posted by you and yours.

The goal of the community team is mostly two-fold: 1) to make sure the feedback, concerns, and popular topics shared within this community are made known to the developers, all the way up to Mike Morhaime. We do this through multiple avenues of communication with our support, development, QA, PR, legal, marketing, and executive teams every single week; and 2) to ensure the doors of Blizzard Entertainment feel open to you, the players -- to show you this company hears you and wants to prove we're here to provide you with outstanding entertainment via as many venues as possible.

We'll be here. We'll be reading. Most importantly, we'll be listening. And we're going to continue improving our methods of communication with you, so you know this is a company dedicated to providing you with the entertainment you want for your money.

P.S. I know it's late, but chalk up the fact that I wrote this in my free time from home, to it coming from the heart and not some company-driven directive. It's great going to work when I know, when all is said and done, I work for a company -- and community -- I believe in and am honored to help support. :)

With Love,
Zarhym

Where's the sarcasm? Come on, just a little?

OK, I'll re-read it again. There has to be some in there somewhere... otherwise I'm calling the authorities, 'cuz some pod got Zar.

We've all been very busy at work lately, so this is something that's been on my mind and I've wanted to share with you for a while. I decided to take some of my own time to do so (the Lakers didn't play tonight anyway).

Perhaps I'll change the title to "Welcome to the Forums. We Love You". That way you'll know I'm still in here somewhere. ;)

05/04/2011 12:46 AMPosted by Bullcrap

Perhaps I'll change the title to "Welcome to the Forums. We Love You". That way you'll know I'm still in here somewhere. ;)

Don't think it's necessary.

But Bullcrap, it's too late!

I totally love most of you.

Most.

The reason why I wrote this from a team perspective, is because the end result of the work we put out is incredibly collaborative. We have a sweet little section of the office where we can remain in constant verbal communication, and that's important. (Besides, the varied perspectives and sense of humor amongst our team are priceless.) We formally meet regularly to discuss what's going on, what information we need to get to you all, and what we need from other teams to present that information to you all snazzy-like. We then all meet with other departments to make sure the magic happens. We even go to lunch as a team once a week just to spend some time together away from the office.

We have our varied methods for communicating with you on the forums, but ultimately what you're getting is a team effort, and there's mutual respect between us.

05/04/2011 01:07 AMPosted by Jumpz

zarhym has been drinking tonight

I know better than to so much as open the forums when imbibing. :p



But enough about us...

What he said. <3

Since this is something of an informal thread, I've always been curious..

How is communication between the various teams in WoW? I know you all regularly get together in planned meetings but I'm talking about off the cuff stuff. Like will people from the story team frequently wander over to the art team to hash ideas, or people from the encounter team checking in with GC before green lighting a particular design decision? Do you have a direct line to Chilton's office? How many gasoline fights in the CM office does Morheim have to break up each day?

All of the above minus the gasoline fights.

We not only have regular meetings, but bounce ideas off each other and talk with various teams to do what we do. We're not insular in how we work because what we do often affects many other teams. The development teams have great open door policies to us and others so we're welcome to stop by any time (and do as often as we're able). While we can communicate via email, messenger, phone, it's generally better to see each other face to face and sometimes, we stop by just to say, "hi" and see how things are going. We're all pretty close or (at the very least) have solid working relationships with each other.