“Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom.”
Clifford Stoll
Facing the Forums
I have to thank, or curse, blogger deezwurds.wordpress.com for posting Not only new but new forum guidelines. Curious, I went to see for myself.
First up, straight up; Blizzard may be hosting but they are not attending the party.
The forum is a fun place for players to talk to each other and post questions like “Have you ever leveled a character with pet battles?”. All fine and good.
Many forum writers seem to think that they can communicate with Blizzard. Nope! In my time there, I didn’t even see a post from a moderator.
As expected, there are a lot of “experts” who know, who really think they know, what is going on in every facet of the game; from the state of pvp to the value of stocks from Activision. They are all full of baloney.
It is astounding how assertive people are in the forums.
There are attempts at fact-finding. I was led to this reddit post which explains why there is a drop in participation in Mythic + dungeons from Legions 7.3.1 to BfA. Then the author, faithfully and true, offers speculation as to why and he owns that.
He suggests that mythic plus is harder, certain classes are weaker, the new dungeons are designed to be difficult. And that might all be true for him.
But, while he does show his data right here that there is a 12% drop; I feel that there are too many factors that we simply do not know to lead to the conclusion that Blizzard blew it on mythic plus dungeons.
One thing that could be a factor is falling subscriptions. That could account for less mythic plus participation that has nothing to do with dungeon design. Or, 7.3.1 was late in the game with players fully geared and with little content; perhaps that was a peak period for dungeon running while today players are still fresh with a ton of things to do like raiding or other things. We simply do not know. Guessing is fine but it is not fact.
The other strange thing in the forum posts is using popular youtubers as a reference in the sense that they are authorities on the subject. I don’t think that the streamers are doing behind-the-scenes interviews with Blizzard designers. I think that if they said that all was wonderful that no one would watch them.
The ever-present social media with streaming and youtubing is as bad as pop-up ads in the 90s; horrible “look at me” spectacles on the level of a child’s tantrum in the grocery store: embarrassing to look at.
To sum up:
Blizzard is not reading the forums for help from you.
Attempts at fact-finding are as rough as my Bad Detective with too many holes in the plot.
The impact of negative reviews by social media mavens and the streaming crowd are impacting the player’s understanding and enjoyment of the game.
It is a fun place to go to post about pet battling.
Coffee Cakes and Crits 
It’s so weird – I used to visit the official forums all the time, way back when, but now here, Twitter, and Reddit are my go-to stops for info and discussion, and frankly, Reddit is turning into a giant cesspit of negativity.
The appeal to authority of the streamers moving on is supposed to be this big sign the game is failing – there’s tons of talk about how Asmongold stopped streaming WoW mostly – but that kind of anecdote is used to launch into the poster’s pet issues. The current state of the game is an interesting topic, but I read far too much from people who extrapolate their own personal distaste for something as being representative of large swaths of players, which, in a game as expansive as WoW, just isn’t a good way to do it.
Although, wow, those forum level ups. Yikes. And while I’d like to see more feedback from the developers and more candid discussions, I don’t think the current team is much suited for that.
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I think that ultimately we need real information from Blizzard, they are losing control of their messaging. I mean, essentially, all of us who write on blogs and reddit and such are reporters; why can’t we get a leak? Y’know, plans for hunter talents stuffed in my mailbox at 1am — that kind of thing.
Has anyone tried to call? Oh well, I’m being silly now!
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I know that I go to the forums quite a bit and it does appear as though it’s just a common area for people to complain about how much they hate the game of WoW. I’m still playing and still enjoying the game, however, it is rather disheartening to see the negativity so prevalent on the public forums. It can’t be good for business.
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If Blizzard promised to faithfully read the forums, they could be much more productive. With no “ear” other than other players, it can get ugly and a place to vent. I only have really one question about the forums, why do people go all the way over there to announce that they are quitting? or, even worse, be active in the forums when they say they’ve quit months ago? A mystery!
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Good question! Especially since it requires an active sub to post there (Except the Classic Forum) as far as I know!
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I often used to check the story forum in the past. Very mature crowd for the most part 🙂 But a ton of spoilers.
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Gadzooks, I didn’t know that there was a story forum!
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Gadzooks indeed! Despite not knowing that word. Is it like Bazinga? Hm! There sure is 🙂 But don´t even THINK about clicking it, there are spoilers in even the headlines there.
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