That assessment might confuse you as little as positive, merely because it is pointingly negative. It has got to be a bad thing on some level, isn’t it? It’s pretty shameful that the game had just thought that it would do that after decades of being around, but the point is that it really is happening, right? It is better late than ever, isn’t it? The problem is that it’s possible that the implementation should never be successful. The entire idea runs into the very central problem that is based on bad logic and weak base assumptions. So let’s clear it up, first recapping everything the game council that Blizzard has proposed is doing. Here’s a hint. Not much. I’ll not quote the bullet list that was published in the original announcement. Please read through the bullet list simply to confirm the already saying here. I will go over the detail of how Blizzard is going to process. The council members have the right to access a special forum for all to make accessible some topics. Those developers and community managers can start a series of discussions. There is also the promise of facilitation of some private discussions without details. We must pay attention to may because it’s the crucial part. Some topics are started by official sources. There’s no actual strict plan for direct engagement through this council, there’s only the possibility that developers can discuss it directly with us in forum topics everybody can view. The central and most obvious problem here is that it has got a specific type of player council, a lack of support for this format. The issues of the moment that WoW has are various, but the problem that developers do not have is that there is no feedback. In writing, my job is keeping an eye on the game and the things in the community. Nevertheless, I could explain the biggest pains players are experiencing with relative ease. There are no more questions, but whether those are playing the games or the forum. What Blizzard seems to lack is double. First is effective or enough, community managers to find and deliver useful portraits of this feedback to developers to unpack. This is at the moment partially due to the fact that Blizzard keeps laying off people who don’t directly relate to development. The other is a developer culture who works hard at listening. We shouldn’t worry to speculate on them, as they have seen the same reports as you for the secret private feedback forums and influencer channels which were open to Blizzard-selected community members and theories on the internet since the early 2010s, and who apparently devolved into chaos over time as Blizzard became increasingly resistant to feedback. We were given special instructions and templates, but we don’t want to harass the devs. He was allowed to say it like criticism, and we were told to avoid words like imbalanced, broken, overpowered, etc. You might argue that a player council is at least theoretically a chance to solve the past problem by providing people who distill feedback and offer it to the development staff. That’s already skeevy even as it demands players to work full time, but this problem does take away from the selection of this council. This is entirely Blizzard who’s employed, and these people serve for a year. Let’s say I love the game, but I don’t care what I’m fighting to do with its game. I’m always fan of everything Ion Hazzikostas does with the game and I don’t have any criticisms of anything except the lack of an official channel for advertising and enhancing the runs. There’s no actual mechanism in place to block Blizzard from choosing me for the council, so I wouldn’t give that a proper feedback for the team on behalf of other players. And in other words, without all transparency and players’ input, Blizzard has made a player council that is not responsible for playing the game. This is only the players. And let’s assume that who’s selected are true representative of player feedback; yet there are lots of different avenues already available and it doesn’t require the player council. I realize that having faith in Blizzard now feels like a big lift, but just bear over me for a moment. There is no real reason for this to change a lot about the game, though it is not all about the developers doing that if it does indeed, be true. Take the obvious example, by adjusting deterministic gear. A few players questioned the answer. “It’s an area of denial and mockery,” said Jack. And having all the facts in the world will make a difference if people try to keep out what they hear because they hold all the cards and have all the power. And again, fell into a lack of talent for the developers in spite of the good feedback that it was given to them. The place where we are today without a council. In the moment, the selection process and the sheer problem of a culture behind the designers feels less like a genuine effort to change something where the game isn’t functioning as well, a stunt. Blizzard gets some facts to suggest where the staff can say see, listening, really we are, without having to change the approach altogether. Some people even suggest that this serves as a hate sink for Blizzard: that if issues are not addressed, developers can claim that the player council failed to inform them rather than that real issue would be developer arrogance. Even though I don’t think this is totally a successful venture, even if tried (remember the player forums will still be viewable, so others can see if issues are questioned), I don’t think it’s completely out of the question, either. It feels like a disaster for a project like this and puts the time and effort on its way to actually produce something, as would it be, without the need to take on something that’s already available at the public without getting a hidden or difficult find. That’s not possible to improve that level of feedback that the team already has, either. The players are feeling that something is changing as all practical issues remain fundamentally identical. The worst part is that situation where this could actually work. There may be a real difference between the current format and the current format if players could believe in Blizzard would respond via feedback received. Even though there is a lot of history in which a good feedback has been offered, the developers have decided not to act for certain reasons, makes even worse with the recent Hazzikostas interview in which he actually said well, our idea for covenants was a good one, but maybe we should have changed our minds sooner. I want to improve the game’s economic output and earn a profit. But at the same time the developer needs a mechanism to receive feedback rather than a push for action. And here doesn’t look like this is a mechanism for the real event. World of Warcraft always grows, but its history has passed, and its impact is huge in the MMORPG industry. Join Eliot Lefebvre each week for a new novel of WoW Factor. His research interests include how MMOs interact with the larger global gaming arena, and what’s new in the worlds of Azeroth and Draenor.
