Community, Criticism, Bans, and MVPs

#1 - June 24, 2013, 7:03 p.m.

Apparently these forums are not a place to voice concern about the game. Players come here to voice their concerns and direction of the game. Now while I understand complaints are not something anyone wants to hear about the work they have done but failure to recognize problems and address paying customer concerns isn't the best way to develop community.

Recently, there has been a buzz in the forums about many of the changes that occurred in 5.3. many players have come here to voice their concerns and discuss things. However, these forums have become very biased and one sided. You promote fanboys to MVP status who continuously report any player who does not agree with the WoW fanboy model. There is one specific MVP that is very biased in support of Blizzard, complains that all players do on the forums is complain, spends 8 hours a day posting Mon-Fri (job, life, anything?), and I'd like to see how many accounts have been banned or suspended based on this specific MVP's constant flagging of any post they deem un fanboyworthy. I know mine has been flagged at least twice for "spamming and harrasment". One message I was banned for was merely stating the fact that Blizzard has lost 17% of it's subscription base in the past 6 months.

So to end this post that will likely get deleted and my account will be banned yet again by another MVP fanboy / fangirl with nothing else going on in the real world that they essentially work as a forum hall monitor... I would like to say that it does not matter. I am past the point of being upset, or even caring about the direction of the game. Your company's treatment of long time paying customers is some of the worst I have ever seen and it continues to grow worse daily.

Rift is now free to play, and so is the open beta for Elder Scrolls Online. With good offerings that are free to play, I'd prefer to end my subscription and find alternatives rather than get nickel and dimed by an aging and dying 7 year old clunker that is less functional today than it was at inception.

Zarhym

Community Manager

#18 - June 25, 2013, 12:35 a.m.

06/24/2013 12:03 PMPosted by Ikhnaton
Apparently these forums are not a place to voice concern about the game.

That's exactly what these forums are for. But that doesn't give one license to voice any concern in whatever way they so choose. We have rules.

06/24/2013 12:03 PMPosted by Ikhnaton
You promote fanboys to MVP status who continuously report any player who does not agree with the WoW fanboy model.

Such a "model" doesn't exist. We have rules, and chances are MVPs are more familiar with them than most of the players who come to post here.

06/24/2013 12:03 PMPosted by Ikhnaton
There is one specific MVP that is very biased in support of Blizzard, complains that all players do on the forums is complain, spends 8 hours a day posting Mon-Fri (job, life, anything?), and I'd like to see how many accounts have been banned or suspended based on this specific MVP's constant flagging of any post they deem un fanboyworthy.

We don't share information regarding account actions with third parties, so the information you're requesting to see cannot be provided to you. That said, even if MVPs were reporting posts simply because they lack a sufficient amount of fanboyism, we're not going to take action just because the report came from an MVP. In fact, our backend moderation system weights reports from MVP-flagged accounts no differently than those from standard accounts. At no point during the moderation procedure does the moderator ask him or herself, "Did this report come from an MVP?" We look at the report and determine what actions, if any, are necessary because -- as you can probably imagine by now -- we have rules.

06/24/2013 12:03 PMPosted by Ikhnaton
So to end this post that will likely get deleted and my account will be banned yet again by another MVP fanboy / fangirl with nothing else going on in the real world that they essentially work as a forum hall monitor...

MVPs don't have the power to lock, delete, ban, or use any other moderation tools that aren't at the disposal of every player posting here. Only Blizzard employees have such moderation powers, and just to reiterate, an MVP's reports are weighted no differently than yours.

To make one final point, we don't choose MVPs because they're fanboys. We choose MVPs who know a lot about this game, are passionate about this game, and love being active members of the community. Many of them are outspoken and, at times, very critical of Blizzard's decisions. But they know we have rules and that they should follow them. They often times try in earnest to help others understand those rules, and for that they're sometimes labeled fanboys.

We try to make sure that being part of the MVP program feels cool and unique, but the green text brings with it some burdens. MVPs are singled out, much in the way you've singled them out here, as being something more than they are: your fellow players. They play the game just like everyone else. They have access to the same tools on the forums as everyone else. The only relevant difference between the average MVP and the average player, in terms of account status, is the color of their text on our forums.

Circling around to my original point, this forum is for gameplay discussions. If you have a problem with the behavior of any individual MVP, please send it to mvps@blizzard.com. The reason why we don't want this kind of post to exist on the forums is we're not interested in community discussions focused around witch hunts, rather than WoW gameplay.

This is why your thread has been locked. This is why we have rules. :)