My reportage is here below.
On the forum thread Caydiem (Blizzard CR) wrote:
Please understand that we value your feedback and we know how upset the Warrior community is at this time. There are ways to express your opinion on this. Post on the forums — we do read the class forums, we know you’re not satisfied, and we appreciate your well-written posts.
The protest is not a constructive way to get your point across. It causes lag for many customers and can ruin their gameplay experience. This is why we cannot allow such a thing to continue. If you use constructive means of communicating with us, trust me… we’ll listen.
To which I replied that ‘trust’ is one of those qualities you have always to earn slowly, with the time.
Again I believe that the importance of this protest is about the communication level. The rest of the comments I paste here should describe well also my point of view:
anarch:
A trend I have noticed, if you post something completely inane you will get a CSR response, while many actual requests for information on stealth nerfs go ignored.Its become clear that the CSR’s are kept in the dark and are basically having to use “we’ll look into it” posts and never return to the subject. This is why the protest happened and the response was hilariously inadequate for such a gesture. It seems Blizzard ignored all the lessons learned from EQ CSR despite the large number of former EQers on their payroll.
J. the Yellow:
If the easiest way to get the attention of CSR’s and/or CM’s is to do or say things that are totally stupid, the relationship is broken.hound:
I think it is called dealing with them on their own level. Joking of course. At any rate I thought I would never experience worse CS than SOE’s however judging from my own experiences with WoW and EQII, it does seem that SOE has improved their act out a lot and Blizzard is fumbling in the dark.Korak:
Protests even to the point of crashing the server should make it plenty clear that there is a problem that needs to get a fairly quick remedy. The only problem is when you have every single class or guild doing this constantly for arguably stupid reasons.Good tool and I’m afraid it’s the only significant one players have at this moment. Quitting doesn’t improve the game. Whining on a forum doesn’t improve it either. Crashing the server doesn’t necessarily help either, but it is a more aggressive stance to a lackluster problem.
anarch:
Not having a true line of communication with the playerbase is the problem. Blizzard can solve all of these protest issues by just responding to issues. All it would take would be for them to divide up the classes amongst the 4 or 5 CSR guys they have working the forums now. Once or twice a day go through the class forums and just respond with a I’ll bring it up at the next dev meeting or I’ll look into it for you.Does that seem so hard? Unfortunately it is more than what Blizzard was willing to do until several thousand people upset with the lack of communication crashed a server in protest. Now they have said what they should have before any of it even happened.
A policy of open communication is not something we, as players, should have to even think about. It’s so fucking common sense I have to wonder about the competency of those in charge of the industry CSR/GM programs.
And finally two core points. The first is that Blizzard is *slow*. Painfully slow. They aren’t an optimal company for a mmorpg because they are organized in a completely different way. Single player games need a completely different structure and while an “old” approach brought to a really polished and successful game, now it’s absolutely inappropriate. And we are only starting to see the difficulties Blizzard will face (and they are somewhat aware of this). My point of view is that this situation isn’t just a temporary adjustment. Again I was expecting this already in May.
Sable Blaze:
We also know exactly how long it takes Blizzard to change anything. So patience is a virtue in this case (a necessity, more like).shild:
Patience is a lot harder to find when you’re paying $15 a month. And I think that’s the problem here. Waiting five months for a patch on a game with no monthly fee is one thing. Waiting five months in an MMOG is $75 and with the leveling curve, you’ll probably max out even if your class is gimped.
And the last point, again about the communication:
Rasix:
But is a “we’re looking into that”, “good stuff is on the way”, “you’re wrong, it works like this” really going to satiate these frothing fanbios?myself:
No, it’s about searching a real and open communication without placeholder answers.Communication is again two-way and it needs a discussion. This discussion goes only from players to devs. They need to start discussing and offer their own feedback.
It’s not about posting a long programmatic announce. It’s about posting it, read the reactions and engage a discussion.
Conclusion with a precious nugget from Freakazoid:
Disco Stu:
How about fuck you. I pay to play the game. They have enough trouble keeping the servers up as it is. If your stupid ass is going to try and crash them because you (in your obviously unbiased and well thought out opinion) don’t kill shit quick enough then you need a kick in the balls and a 24 hour ban.Freakazoid:
(paraphrasing)
How about fuck you. I pay my taxes. They have enough trouble keeping the roads uncongested as it is. If your stupid ass is going to try and halt traffic because you (in your obviously unbiased and well thought out opinion) think the police are racist then you need a kick in the balls and a 24 hour detention.