Why Mages Are Complaining

I'm putting some blue on this thread, but please refrain from posting /signed in it. If you have an opinion, agree/disagree with what is in discussion, please say so. /signed doesn't tell us anything more and isn't constructive to the discussions at hand.

Q u o t e:


But since you're here neth, is anything being done to improve fire mage viability in pvp in the near future?

There are many people that have concerns about their viability in PvP and we take into account these concerns where we can but need to also keep in mind how any change will also affect PvE. The most I can say is that I can take the concerns about it to the team.

The reason we say that /signed doesn't help is because we want to see more discussion to go with it. It helps gauge where the heart of a concern may be. It doesn't guarantee that we are going to make any changes based on that, but then again, it doesn't mean we aren't going to take it into consideration for changes that are yet to come either. Some people are concerned more for PvP, some for PvE and some for both. Some Raid, some don't as we well know from many discussions and "flame" wars we see on the forums about these topics. We like seeing discussion, what we don't like doing is promising anything we can't deliver on.

Q u o t e:


I hope you get to read this, Nethaera...

These two sentences completely changed the way I look at /signed. They may acknowledge that a large portion of the mage community can be motivated to sign onto the forums and just type /signed and ditto-head along with whatever the OP said.

Now, I've been tempted to do this myself before (I think I may even have /signed a thread or two myself) but what Neth just said showed me exactly why they don't want mages (or anyone) to /sign.

They analyze what we say and through their own personal interpretation, they come away with a sense of the community overall, rather than just everyone "towing the party line."

This is a gross oversimplification, but if we're all talking about oranges (to remove ourselves from the situation a little) and someone says, "Oranges are the best fruit because they are delicious and are filled with Vitamin C." Everyone who just agrees doesn't bring anything to the conversation, so if I want you to buy oranges, all I have to do is sell you something delicious with Vitamin C in it and you (the customer) will be happy.

Now, if the guy who posted about delicious oranges says what he says and some people response, "Well, I like oranges that don't have seeds and that are a little on the tart side" while another person says, "I like oranges because of their color and the pulpy texture."

After this, the business knows that you don't just like oranges because of vitamin C and flavor, you like them for a variety of reasons, and with more information like that, it's a little easier to drill down exactly what it is that makes oranges so appealing.

I know the orange thing was dorky, but I didn't want to make comparisons to mages because I worry people would attack the metaphor and miss my point.

That's a really nice way of putting it, Lament. Thanks. :) " Everyone might like oranges, but what about them makes them the focus of that liking?", Is a nice analogy.

While we understand that /signed means someone agrees, we want to know why someone agrees or doesn't agree even.

It's also important to differentiate between someone just trolling for the sake of tipping the scales (so to speak) vs. genuinely liking the ideas and sentiments being put forth.

Yes, I posted that I was bluing the thread, and the reason for that is so that it's easily found by other posters, by myself and by anyone else on the team that is looking for a place where there is a lot of focused and hopefully constructive discussion going on. If anyone read anything more into it than that, it wasn't intended as any other thing but a marker and a way to draw attention to it as a positive means of communication. Should you feel like you have feedback though, you can email to wowcmfeedback@blizzard.com It's true that they are read but it's also true that we do not send responses to them. Just know the feedback is taken into account. We have the email there specifically so that the community can let the management know if they like, don't like, or have suggestions for what we do. Thanks!