Thanks for nothing

09/02/2014 01:26 PMPosted by Rubedo

09/02/2014 01:11 PMPosted by Kelgore

They aren't loyal to me

You know, there is no reason whatsoever for Blizzard to be "loyal" to you. They already have your money. And if you quit, you're just an insignificant $15 a month.

For a company that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars, $15 is not even worth the cost to to try to save.

Just remember this for any game you play, the only reason the company is "loyal" to you, is if they can squeeze more money out of you, and that's your only worth to them.

This is incorrect. As an individual customer, Kelgore does matter to us. He's paying for access to content and we want to make sure he's happy with it. We put a lot of time and effort into delivering the best gaming experience possible with every expansion and patch. For everyone.

That said, the real breakdown lies in this notion that his standing as a customer makes him more deserving and entitled to test the upcoming expansion than his fellow players who are currently in the closed beta. I reiterate that it's a closed beta to serve as a reminder that it's a limited test of a product that is for sale to the public, and will be available for purchase and play to all customers on November 13, 2014. No portion of one's game payment or monthly subscription inherently includes with it the exclusive, free testing of an upcoming product for sale to the public.

But we'll continue inviting players as needed to test the upcoming expansion. Either way we'll absolutely fall short of inviting every paying customer, much less everyone who feels deserving, nor should anyone realistically expect that that is our goal.

09/02/2014 01:57 PMPosted by Rubedo

09/02/2014 01:51 PMPosted by Zarhym

For everyone.

But that's impossible, you can't please everyone.

Although, you didn't say "all the time", so you have a point.

That's why I said, "we put a lot of time and effort into delivering the best gaming experience possible" for everyone. The point is that we do our best to make all of our customers happy, regardless of how technically possible it is. ;)

09/02/2014 02:07 PMPosted by Fenril

...
This is incorrect. As an individual customer, Kelgore does matter to us. He's paying for access to content and we want to make sure he's happy with it. We put a lot of time and effort into delivering the best gaming experience possible with every expansion and patch. For everyone.

That said, the real breakdown lies in this notion that his standing as a customer makes him more deserving and entitled to test the upcoming expansion than his fellow players who are currently in the closed beta. I reiterate that it's a closed beta to serve as a reminder that it's a limited test of a product that is for sale to the public, and will be available for purchase and play to all customers on November 13, 2014. No portion of one's game payment or monthly subscription inherently includes with it the exclusive, free testing of an upcoming product for sale to the public.

But we'll continue inviting players as needed to test the upcoming expansion. Either way we'll absolutely fall short of inviting every paying customer, much less everyone who feels deserving, nor should anyone realistically expect that that is our goal.

While I can see Blizzard point, I have to say it does get frustrating as ever year goes by and nothing happens.

I been playing MMORPG since 1999 when EQ came out and with WoW since August 2005 and the only Beta I seen is where I pretty much paid for it with the annual pass.

You would really think that you would have a better lottery system to get your oldest players in once every few expansions. But going on number 5 and getting zip makes you wonder.

Invites sent to players on the opt-in list are prioritized based on criteria that designates veteran status. So, as more invites go out, the further down this list we go and the less stringent the criteria becomes. But we're not going to divulge the exact criteria by which players who are opted in are invited, as that information isn't going to help diffuse the frustration we see from people who haven't been invited yet. The problem is that the term "veteran" isn't well defined within the community and is a label a lot of people like to throw around when lobbying for beta access.

09/02/2014 02:10 PMPosted by Killercaitie

09/02/2014 02:07 PMPosted by Zarhym

The point is that we do our best to make all of our customers happy

So, how about those pigtail hairstyles for human females?

:D?

Let me amend my statement:

The point is that we do our best to make all of our customers happy, except for Killercaitie. She's just impossible.

I kid! :D <3

09/02/2014 02:39 PMPosted by Notalock

09/02/2014 01:51 PMPosted by Zarhym

That said, the real breakdown lies in this notion that his standing as a customer makes him more deserving and entitled to test the upcoming expansion than his fellow players who are currently in the closed beta. I reiterate that it's a closed beta to serve as a reminder that it's a limited test of a product that is for sale to the public, and will be available for purchase and play to all customers on November 13, 2014. No portion of one's game payment or monthly subscription inherently includes with it the exclusive, free testing of an upcoming product for sale to the public.

But we'll continue inviting players as needed to test the upcoming expansion. Either way we'll absolutely fall short of inviting every paying customer, much less everyone who feels deserving, nor should anyone realistically expect that that is our goal.

How many players do y'all take as testers before deciding to close an expansion's beta? I've never been an alpha / beta tester for any video game, but I'm curious how many players y'all rely upon to find and report bugs in projects like WoW expansions.

Since I've never experienced a beta testing before, I'm not sure how frequently bugs occur. With a game of WoW's scale, I'd imagine finding an individual bug is as rare as tripping over a submarine in a forest.

There are tons of variables with each expansion and depending on what stage of testing we're in. Earlier on in the test process we want to make sure the areas that are open for testing are decently populated. Right now in Warlords, with most content available, we want to get more of a critical mass to stress test things. This is why we do invites in waves and can't provide specifics on when each wave will be. We watch concurrency trends (number of players online at any given time) very carefully and react as needed to get them where we want them to be at specific stages of development.

Even if we've invited hundreds of thousands of people to test the game (we have), chances are the majority of them tried it out for a while to get a taste and then stopped (they have) so as not to spoil their appetite for the final product. If we see that in the concurrency figures then we'll send additional waves of invites until we start seeing the critical mass we want to stress test all the content and features currently available.

09/02/2014 02:40 PMPosted by Moradìm

OP does have a point though, beta access should go to more experienced players...not people in a random giveaway on twitch. streamers got beta keys to give out to anyone: why are randoms more entitled than a paying customer, for example?

besides, i've seen the state of beta. and to be honest, they need better feedback on pve and pvp issues, there are way too many.

I've seen this argument so many times and it's annoying. "Why are 'randoms' more entitled?" You ask. They're not. You have just as much of an opportunity to win a key from a giveaway as a "random" does (unless you don't participate and are just complaining about those who are). You're a "random." Everyone who participates is a "random" in a giveaway.

But, more to the real point, all those Twitch streamers hosting giveaways amounted to a total of just over 2,000 keys going to "randoms." The most recent invite wave of players who have opted in went to nearly 200,000 people.

I can't stress enough that promotional giveaways have no significant impact on our primary system for giving beta access to the community: the opt-in system.

09/02/2014 02:58 PMPosted by Moradìm

09/02/2014 02:55 PMPosted by Bubblykiss

A lot of blue interactions going on today....have not seen this much positive community interaction in a long time.

you mean damage control

Really glad I can count on you to step in at such times, Moradìm. For a moment I indignantly thought the glass was half full.

09/02/2014 03:02 PMPosted by Balewind

09/02/2014 02:55 PMPosted by Bubblykiss

A lot of blue interactions going on today....have not seen this much positive community interaction in a long time.

What is going on here today?

Probably coming from a meeting with the devs. They went from "watch and take notes" mode to "dispense the party line to common questions and share news" mode.

Hmm, that "party line" phrase is typically assigned negative connotation, but I don't mean it here. It's literally their job.

Haha, we had no grand discussion on who would hit the forums today and how hard. It's mostly a matter of how busy each of us are with our individual tasks. I actually do have a lot to get done in this short week, but after a nice 3-day weekend I felt like checking in on what the community is talking about on the forums. Some of my colleagues appear to be doing the same :)

I still have my task list staring me down!

09/02/2014 03:04 PMPosted by Moradìm

09/02/2014 02:59 PMPosted by Zarhym

I've seen this argument so many times and it's annoying. "Why are 'randoms' more entitled?" You ask. They're not. You have just as much of an opportunity to win a key from a giveaway as a "random" does (unless you don't participate and are just complaining about those who are). You're a "random." Everyone who participates is a "random" in a giveaway.

But, more to the real point, all those Twitch streamers hosting giveaways amounted to a total of just over 2,000 keys going to "randoms." The most recent invite wave of players who have opted in went to nearly 200,000 people.

I can't stress enough that promotional giveaways have no significant impact on our primary system for giving beta access to the community: the opt-in system.

my entire point is that long time customers deserve access more than people in a random twitch giveaway. they are your loyal customers, after all. being subbed since vanilla is not "random", that's my point. someone in a twitch giveaway might not even play the game. so why do they deserve access more than a veteran player?

They don't. I hope that clarifies things for you.

09/02/2014 03:08 PMPosted by Moradìm

09/02/2014 03:05 PMPosted by Nyzer

...

Because veteran players are not entitled to beta access with 100% more importance than anyone else.

Also because you don't understand marketing.

I understand marketing quite well. I also understand that it's a bad idea to ignore your most loyal fanbase. Yes, not everyone can have access...but it would still be a nice gesture in the midst of the longest content drought ever to reward those who have stuck it out with access to testing.

besides, people who have played for a long time are probably the best option for giving feedback: why not use them?

So you want us to reward everyone who has had their subscription active since 5.4 came out with beta access, because you've had to endure a content drought (which we're fixing by developing a new expansion, by the way)? If I remember correctly that's nearly 7 million people. Do you find this reasonable?

09/02/2014 03:17 PMPosted by Dessertfork

...

So Blizzard posts should include a glossary of terms to explicitly define every word that could possibility be misinterpreted?

No because that would be plain silly.

But to say, "we are targeting veterans first" and then come up here and say "the community doesn't know the definition of the term" just reeks of insufficient communication, especially with "that information isn't going to help diffuse the frustration" in the same comment complaining about the community's lack of understanding of the term ... ? LOL

I agree with you, but I actually think it was a mistake on our part to try and even explain that we're prioritizing based on some sort of veteran qualifications. If we explain exactly what that means it's just going to draw further scrutiny on whether our criteria is sufficient in defining what it means to be a veteran. It also causes those people who consider themselves veterans, but whom we haven't been able to fit into the beta yet, to call foul.

The communication could've been handled much better and I don't think we're in a position to be able to fix that through providing additional details on our invite criteria at this stage in the beta cycle.

09/02/2014 03:46 PMPosted by Guorozark

09/02/2014 01:51 PMPosted by Zarhym

This is incorrect. As an individual customer, Kelgore does matter to us. He's paying for access to content and we want to make sure he's happy with it. We put a lot of time and effort into delivering the best gaming experience possible with every expansion and patch. For everyone.

False.

Players with renowned, very popular and with lots of followers, creators of fansites, dedicated members of the video game content sites, etc.

Such users are treated preferentially ...

Many of these users, always participate in the Beta testing and are among the first to be invited.

These users also receive extra invitations to hand out to friends, relatives and supporters.

Do not treat all users the same way, there are preferential and convenience groups.

09/02/2014 01:51 PMPosted by Zarhym

That said, the real breakdown lies in this notion that his standing as a customer makes him more deserving and entitled to test the upcoming expansion than his fellow players who are currently in the closed beta

But sad to know that if there are people who are specially treated and a matter of convenience.

09/02/2014 02:07 PMPosted by Zarhym

That's why I said, "we put a lot of time and effort into delivering the best gaming experience possible" for everyone

Sorry but that's not what I see. What I really see is a great effort to increase profits to the point of destroying the Lore, incorporating content that did more to undermine the role and fun and arbitrarily remove content greatly appreciated.

------------------

My subscription was canceled (I still have some active time) and unfortunately my purchase WOD ever see the light on my computer.

I apologize for the way I express as my native language is Spanish.

From already thank you very much for letting me participate in your forum and spend a few minutes on my contribution.

Greetings!

This isn't some dark secret. I've already discussed the difference between inviting people among the general population via the opt-in system, and focusing on promotional efforts to raise awareness and build hype for the expansion. Further, I clarified that the latter makes up a minuscule fraction of the total number of people who obtain beta access, including those who get in via giveaways. If you seem to more readily notice that influential players and fansite staff members have beta access than you do any other ordinary player, that's precisely why it's a promotional exercise.

I don't see the grand conspiracy with us having a vested interest in ensuring that the staff of a site like Wowhead, or a streamer with a following like Swifty, are able to get access to test Warlords and share their findings with the gaming community.

No worries about the language barrier. In fact I appreciate you taking the time to express yourself outside of your native language.

Welcome! :)

09/02/2014 03:51 PMPosted by Moradìm

09/02/2014 03:47 PMPosted by Zarhym

So you want us to reward everyone who has had their subscription active since 5.4 came out with beta access, because you've had to endure a content drought (which we're fixing by developing a new expansion, by the way)? If I remember correctly that's nearly 7 million people. Do you find this reasonable?

beta access en masse didn't seem to be a problem with MoP and the annual pass...regardless, if access cant go to every player, then vanilla/bc players who've played for a long time would be good candidates.

however, maybe for a week or two open beta would be good, to stress test?

The Annual Pass caused many problems, and that was shy of the 7 million mark by nearly 6 million. We have somewhere around 5 beta realms. We don't need more than that to reasonably and adequately stress test the game. An open beta under these conditions would be completely counterproductive. It'd actually be impossible.

09/02/2014 04:04 PMPosted by Waylord

What would happen is skull manager merged with tree manager? Would we have a skulltree? or a treeskull?

I'm stealing tree manager this Friday to take him on his bachelor party for the weekend.

#bestman2014

09/02/2014 04:35 PMPosted by Moradìm

I guess a common theme appears to be certain ideas not being communicated clearly, or people getting the wrong idea. People see "oh, veteran access priority...i'm a veteran!" and get upset if they aren't selected. Or "hmm, bladespire/karabor look pretty cool", then we find out those aren't happening. Or "you'll be able to fly in 6.1" changing to "we'll wait and see".

Design is an iterative process, I know. But when people hear one thing and see another later, that's when people start to qq/become more vocal about various issues. Not pointing fingers, but that's why people may be upset. In this case, there are vanilla players wondering why they were left out. Combined with the length of the current tier, and you have additional frustration.

Not saying being upset entitles you to anything, just pointing out why they are upset.

So... yea... don't forget to vote me as Community Manager of the Year! http://community.guildlaunch.com/promotions/g/DragonSlayer/

:p

09/02/2014 04:51 PMPosted by Moradìm

09/02/2014 04:48 PMPosted by Cocoa

While paraphrasing might help you with your agenda, the facts completely destroy it.

They never said ALL veterans will get beta invites.

they also never said we would be getting bladespire/karabor as capital cities, they just implied it. still doesn't mean people won't be disappointed.

I guess what we can learn from this entire situation/beta process is...don't get peoples hopes up. Cause inevitably, some people are going to be upset when things don't turn out as they expected. Now, i'm not suggesting the xpac will be bad, i'm optimistic. However, it's hard to please everyone...especially in this game.

Somewhere between the realms of "Blizzard, we want you to be more open in your communications with us" and "Blizzard, you promised all of these things and are now backing out with filthy lies" is a magical wonderland of happiness and corgi smiles that none of us will ever get to enjoy.

09/02/2014 05:00 PMPosted by Bírgítte

09/02/2014 01:11 PMPosted by Kelgore

I am sure you could care less*

'could care less' is the exact opposite of what you mean, which is 'couldn't care less'.

Because if you could care less, it means you do care.

Let's all try to stick to the language we've all agreed to.

That was my fault. I quickly changed the words that followed "could" to something less violationy.

09/02/2014 05:08 PMPosted by Barleyfists

...
Somewhere between the realms of "Blizzard, we want you to be more open in your communications with us" and "Blizzard, you promised all of these things and are now backing out with filthy lies" is a magical wonderland of happiness and corgi smiles that none of us will ever get to enjoy.

Are there ducks too? I bet there are ducks.

Ducks have been removed due to time constraints in the magical wonderland production pipeline.

09/02/2014 05:14 PMPosted by Glyff

09/02/2014 05:06 PMPosted by Zarhym

Somewhere between the realms of "Blizzard, we want you to be more open in your communications with us" and "Blizzard, you promised all of these things and are now backing out with filthy lies" is a magical wonderland of happiness and corgi smiles that none of us will ever get to enjoy.

Perhaps if you aren't absolutely sure you can do a feature, even a year down the line or more, do not under any circumstances bring it up. Do not even imply it. That doesn't seem too difficult unless there's some calculation at play that the losses are not as bad as the gains to doing so. To me it seems like miscommunication is worse than no communication, but I don't have the marketing data. It's not like it's the public who just fabricated these notions of Karabor/Bladespire capitals, veteran beta access, dance studio, whatever. These things spun out from the source, Blizzard itself.

I really don't think you want what you seem to be requesting. This game is too big and too complex for us to be in regular communications with the player base, all the while never discussing anything unless we're absolutely sure it'll never change.

That concept also ignores things that do change based on player feedback. Sometimes we introduce concepts and then shape them based on responses. Yes, that sometimes stirs frustration and arguments.

Some people maybe can't handle, or don't want to deal with, the dynamics of the development process and the communications surrounding it. That's fine. I've played many games for many hours without ever having checked their official websites or third-party fansites for the latest info on those games. Oftentimes I'll buy a game that I'm interested in and play it for as long as it remains fun to me. I don't particularly care about the info on their website or what is happening on their forums. I'm among the silent majority as a player.

I'm not judging people either way, especially given that I'm a community manager, hah! But if you're really active in the community and attentive to the statements made by the company, as well as from individuals from the company speaking on social media, you can't always expect a smooth ride with no deviations, mixed signals, or pit stops. There are too many moving pieces on this ship, and a hell of a lot of crew members, flight attendants, and passengers.

...I might be mixing metaphors.

09/02/2014 05:16 PMPosted by Paulusii

09/02/2014 05:14 PMPosted by Zarhym

Ducks have been removed due to time constraints in the magical wonderland production pipeline.

I am starting to think someone might be hitting the sauce at work.

Soy Sauce? I really want to believe that's a John Dies at the End reference.

09/02/2014 05:21 PMPosted by Amyiss

09/02/2014 05:17 PMPosted by Kaydeethree

So, basically, you're asking for no information from Blizz about future content at all?

How about no future content announcements until they learn the proper channel for communicating large scale changing in plans isn't on twitter before they go home on friday.

Surely someone can hold that in for a proper post on Monday (the one poor Bashiok had to write anyway, in the case of capitals).

Point taken on that. We agree that the openness of social media has some major advantages, but can also cause some major problems. We try to reconcile those concepts in such a way that every employee understands and follows some basic communication guidelines.

Edit: To add to this, it certainly makes a CM's job more interesting. :p

09/02/2014 05:24 PMPosted by Moradìm

Also, I think twitter should be used a lot less, and the forum much more often. Would keep things more clear since there are often contradicting points of view on there.

Referring back to my previous few posts on communications...

I don't disagree with you, but it'd kinda suck to work for a company that's incredibly authoritarian when it comes to employees on social media. I don't know what you do for a living, but try to apply the concept to your life or those around you in whatever way you can.

I'm part of the Communications team at Blizzard, which is traditionally a very standard department for any company of a decent size to have. Social media has torn down some of the natural barriers that left certain tasks to the Communications team of a given company. It's a problem companies of all stripes have been grappling with in recent years.

You want your employees to feel able to express themselves on social media, particularly if they're passionate about their jobs. You also don't want them undercutting or usurping communications plans.

Blizzard isn't uniquely immune to this struggle. We want employees to be able to share their passion for their work and love of geek culture as members of the community, but it means there's a lot more room for mixed messages or ill-presented communications. We're learning as we go, as are most major companies out there.

09/02/2014 05:53 PMPosted by Doomsandwich

They use them beta keys to buy favors with the fan sites. Can't even say anything bad about wow on mmo champ anymore without getting squashed by their mods.

lol. That's a shame. I can only imagine you'd have some really important stuff to share if it weren't for The Man.

09/02/2014 06:20 PMPosted by Padgarre

I am looking forward to that PTR patch! Any word on when it might hit testing? 6.0 could be quite fun to mess with even for free while we wait for you guys to slave away and whip each other around. I can imagine Tom is there with a bull whip and keeping people in line and properly motivated.

Also, WoD looks pretty darn awesome! Apparently you already know this due to the OUTRAGE of people that are not invited but were apparently entitled to be.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the 6.0.2 PTR release is imminent. :)

09/02/2014 06:27 PMPosted by Locknæss

09/02/2014 01:27 PMPosted by Fluffysummon

Its random, there are people who have played the game just as long and have never once gotten a BETA invite.

It's NOT random. Many of the live warcraft streamers got not only beta invites but keys to give away to others.

I covered this at length in multiple posts earlier in this thread. Give 'em a read! <3