Poster: Eyonix at 3/2/2005 10:41:09 PM PST
Subject: Re: So, Blizzard, What Are You Gonna Do Now? |
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I've taken a few moment to address the concerns that have surfaced as a result of your thread, Seven. As always I've kept my responses honest, and provided as much insight as I felt appropriate, so in all probability we may agree to disagree in some areas. However, I do wish to make it clear that some of these statements are based upon my own perspective, which I do feel is witness to a very large picture.
Q u o t e:
Why does it take so long to get anything to your customer base?
While it's true, the process to relay information can be slow in some situations depending upon the circumstances, we've greatly improved our level of communication over the last several weeks, and we continue to grow in this area each and every day. I'm sorry if you disagree with this statement, but if you take time and read each member of the community team's post history using the "Finding Information on Blizzard" sticky, you should realize, as a whole, we've made great progress in this area.
Q u o t e:
Why does the realm status page take so long to reflect the current state of the world.
You're correct, currently the Realm Status page isn't perfect, and we're working to address the issue so that players are better informed. However, it's still very useful, and should be used in conjunction with the information posted in the Realm Status forum, which we've done a very good job in updating lately.
Q u o t e:
Reply to the hard hitting posts with "thank you for you input" or something to that effect. It is the silence that bothers us most of all coupled with the responses you always do seem to manage to provide.
I believe you've missed quite a few of our posts, I encourage you to read all Blizzard Poster's responses, not just what appears on the front page, before making statements such as this one. I personally reply to as wide of a variety of posts as possible.
Q u o t e:
Bugs and patches that are supposed to fix problems but seem to spawn more bugs every time they are applied. The game should get better after you patch it, not more unstable. I personally think your QA process is broken beyond recognition.
World of Warcraft is a massive project and as a result, it isn't perfect. I can assure you that if our Quality Assurance process was "broken", a game of this caliber would never have released, let alone become, at least in my personal opinion, the best online role-playing game I've encountered. We're actively working to make improvements to the state of the game, which include bug fixes, and are more than pleased with the quality and work our Quality Assurance team has delivered thus far. Focusing in an only the flaws of a design will most certainly lead to dissatisfaction.
Q u o t e:
How long is it you expect for your customers to have this so-called "patience" before they cancel their accounts and move on to other games?
It's our hopes that players will remain patient as long as it takes for us to meet customer expectations in all areas. This is not to say that we're by any means, "taking our time". As a matter of fact, we've been working extended hours, and have been since before the launch of the game. We're staffing up as quickly as possible, and we've been exploring a multitude of solutions to a variety of problems concerning all aspects of both the game, and our service. World of Warcraft is intended to improve the quality of life by providing entertainment to players, it's not our intention to cause frustration.
Q u o t e:
Problem I have with you is that you're passing the buck.. but even worse, passing it to people we have NO direct contact with.
I'm going to be honest here, I'm not sure what you mean. I don't recall a single instance in which myself or the other Community Managers have done anything remotely similar to what you're describing. We do our best to provide information to the community as it's received, and take responsibility when reports indicate that we've failed in some way. If we've led you to believe otherwise, I apologize.
Q u o t e:
TRIGGER HAPPY AND LAZY GM'SAre they rotated is extreamly frustrating.[/ to different realms or are they always on the same realm? It takes far too long to get any kind of response from the in game GMs. Far to long.
I've stated this before, the GameMasters work extremely hard day in and day out, and do so around the clock. Players should rest assured, there is a very solid check system in place that would prevent a member of the GM staff from acting in a manner even remotely considered "trigger happy". Concerning your question that requests information pertaining to GM realm rotation, unfortunately, I'm not in a position to inform the community of such procedures. Lastly, we're working to improve in-game response time, and as stated above, we've been staffing up so players should begin seeing improvements in this area very soon.
I wish to drive the point home that we're working hard to improve in all areas, and feel confident that we're headed in the right direction. I do believe World of Warcraft is an amazing game and state that proudly, regardless of the fact that it may sound biased. In closing, I would like to emphasise the fact that not a single employee of Blizzard Entertainment wishes for anything less than complete customer satisfaction. We worked hard to bring you this game, and have so much in-store for everyone.[ post edited by Eyonix ]
Online Community Representative
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=1712959&p=#post1722065 | | | Poster: Eyonix at 3/2/2005 10:53:20 PM PST
Subject: Re: So, Blizzard, What Are You Gonna Do Now? |
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Q u o t e:
The update page. -REPEATEDLY- Caydiem first passed the duty to Ordinn, trying to explain that he was sick. Then she passed the blame beyond him, to the devs to get concrete answers. That is passing the buck.
That's just the first concrete example that came to mind. You yourself are constantly saying "We are trying to get a better information flow." Which reads as "It's not the CM's fault. It's some one else's. Some one won't let us give you the information, or is not giving -us- the information." That is again passing the buck.
2 instances quickly thought of. If you don't see either of those as cop outs, we will have to 'agree to disagree' about your competence.
The statements in which you're referring were not made with the intent to pass blame on to someone else, Sooshi. We were informing the community the reason for the delay in each of those areas, and we apologized for them.
Online Community Representative
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=1712959&p=#post1722213 | Poster: Eyonix at 3/3/2005 12:07:42 AM PST
Subject: Re: So, Blizzard, What Are You Gonna Do Now? |
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Q u o t e:
Regarding my "Passing The Buck" statement, I would like you to go back and read some of Caydiem's latest posts, where she states that she is trying very hard to "open the lines of communication" but "this process takes some time." Well.. I mean, that's pretty cut and dry right there, bro. There is only one reason that would stop the lines of communication from opening, if in fact Caydiem is trying as hard as she claims.. execs/developers. Both of these groups we cannot even communicate with. That makes it appear as though you are powerless, it undermines you as a group within your company. I'm sure it must infuriate you to hear something like that.. but believe it or not, up until recently I was in a job just like yours. I don't envy your position, bro, and I hope you all know that I don't mean anything personal toward any of the Mod staff when I say what I say. Most of my anger at this point.. and I believe I speak for a good amount of the upset customer base.. most of our anger to this point is with the developers, the network admins, and the execs. The people who make the decisions. You CM's can listen to us all you want, but in the end what we see is you saying you hear us, and the Developers are standing behind you giving us the finger with wicked grins on their faces. Again, nothing personal, but just the impression I get.
The messaging we've used that concerns the will of our efforts of opening the lines of communication, and that process taking time was never meant to imply that a failure existed somewhere else. We are adapting to our roles in the community, and the company is adapting to having a group such as us, as not too long ago, there wasn't a community team in place. What you're seeing are simply growing pains, which we will overcome. In the future, I will be sure that we choose our words more wisely when addressing these kind of concerns.
Q u o t e:
NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT - Let's talk bugs and patches for a second. Now, I'm gonna talk about a specific bug/fix, but the situation really applies to all the "hotfix" attempts you've made this far. After Hunters (last class made) were introduced, it was nearly immediately that we found a bug in the Aspect of Hawk ability. It was documented clearly, time and again, and you folks continued to ignore us. It was only AFTER I personally made an effort to post complete details of how the bug could be exploited for the BENEFIT of players did you do anything about it.. and then to top it off, the change you made screws up our class even more! Now, personally, the BoM and Battle Shout buffs don't really matter a lot to me, my toon is built well enough to have 598 ranged attack power already. But still.. when you only fix the bugs that appear to BENEFIT the players, and you ignore MAJOR bugs that are detrimental to players, you are sending a very clear message to your playerbase. We don't care about problems you have that make the game unplayable, we only care about the bugs that benefit you. Obviously, this is not a good message to be sending. I am asserting here that if it's possible for you to "hotfix" certain bugs, it should be possible for you to patch ALL bugs.
You're correct, we were slow in acknowledging this issue, and for that I'm truly sorry. Moving forward, we will make sure that communication concerning known bugs being reported are provided in a much more timely fashion. Concerning your second point, please look at the picture as a whole. In most cases, a bug that provides a single class with an unintended benefit creates a much larger adverse affect (depending upon the specifics of course) on the entire gaming community than a bug that provided an unintended disadvantage. This by no means indicates that there are no plans to address these kinds of bugs, and players will be pleased to hear that the next content patch will introduce a number of bug fixes.[ post edited by Eyonix ]
Online Community Representative
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=1712959&p=#post1723163 | Poster: Eyonix at 3/3/2005 12:19:20 AM PST
Subject: Re: So, Blizzard, What Are You Gonna Do Now? |
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Q u o t e:
Funny how a 'content patch' is now being changed into a bug/fix patch.
Please do not twist my words, Golden. I stated the content patch will introduce bug fixes, and not the other way around. This thread will digress and lose meaning quickly if it simply becomes a format for making negative comments of completely unrelated subjects.[ post edited by Eyonix ]
Online Community Representative
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=1712959&p=#post1723304 | Poster: Eyonix at 3/3/2005 12:55:41 AM PST
Subject: Re: So, Blizzard, What Are You Gonna Do Now? |
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Seven, considering the fact that what the community needs are results, and not words, I regretfully have nothing more to offer tonight beyond that which I've already stated. I assure you that this thread will be included in my nightly report and wish to convey that the feedback you and many others have provided tonight is most certainly appreciated. I sincerely hope that moving forward we can begin meeting each of your expectations.
Online Community Representative
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=1712959&p=#post1723687 | Poster: Eyonix at 3/3/2005 1:10:33 AM PST
Subject: Re: So, Blizzard, What Are You Gonna Do Now? |
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Q u o t e:
I think Eyonix just told us he isn't following this post anymore.
Damn, those Blizzard CMs take our outrage at the company's problems personally.
Quite the contrary, Brodie. What I stated is that I have nothing else to offer in terms of messaging as it relates to the concerns being directed at me in this thread. As stated the information in this thread will be listed in my nightly report, which would indicate that this thread will continue to receive my attention. Also, I've not taken anything stated here personal, but that doesn't mean that I'm not frustrated by the situation. I want the same things you want, trust me.
Online Community Representative
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=1712959&p=#post1723875 |
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