Blizzard Needs A Central Information Repository
Posted by 
iTZKooPA on Wednesday, April 8, 2009 - 15 Comments Tags: blue, blue posts, ghostcrawler, information, informed consumers, organization, qq, suggestions & feedback, wrap up
iTZKooPA on Wednesday, April 8, 2009 - 15 Comments Tags: blue, blue posts, ghostcrawler, information, informed consumers, organization, qq, suggestions & feedback, wrap up 
<QQ>I touched upon this subject last week in my farewell to Warhammer Online post, but it has raised its ugly head once again. For all intents and purposes, Blizzard has no facility implemented - and in use - to disseminate crucial or important information to the mass of World of Warcraft subscribers. Yes, they have the official forums and the front page of WorldofWarcraft.com, but they don't use these facilities to their utmost potential.
Rather than being a haven for important discussions, details and announcements, the majority of the forum is used as a soapbox by angry and disenfranchised players. Blues do creep in and drop bombs on the community here and there, but their efforts are trivialized by how few of us absorb the morsels. To top it off, the same question or topic is then brought up a week later. The front page of the MMORPG's official website is employed as a facilitator to a degree, with contests or huge announcements disclosed, but it misses the mark when compared to what it could easily offer.
Bloggers, players and apparently even Ghostcrawler are fed up with the lack of a central information repository. It doesn't have to be anything glamorous, new or even incredibly up-to-date. To make most QQers happy, all Blizzard would have to do is a weekly wrap-up of important blue posts. Just a quick summation of the hot topics with direct links to the discussions and we'd be so much happier. Sure, bloggers would have to remain on the prowl for daily updates, but the average playerbase would enjoy the information being delivered in a nice package for them.</QQ>
There is also a flip side to this. Rather than placating critics like me, the developer would likely draw more casual subscribers into the forums if they had a "safe" starting point like this. From what I have gathered from anecdotal evidence, most of my casual friends fear the forum is some sort of mystical creature with a thousand or so maws. Perhaps it is all the clutter that comes from the repeating topics, the hatred spewed or the know-it-all attitudes. Or, to lift Ghostcrawler's statement, maybe it is a "perfect storm" of the three.
I rarely frequented the forums when I was a hardcore player because of this very issue. It wasn't until I when I relapsed into real life that I began lurking the forums on a regular basis. You know, to stay hip and all. But lurking is all I ever do...How often do you frequent the forums and in what capacity? Poster or lurker? You seem to love our wrap-ups, but would you want Blizzard to do one of their important information on a weekly basis?
And yes, I know that ProjectLore or any number of sites could do this, I just feel that Blizzard should be doing it to keep their customers informed. Plus, as you can see by our growing list of talented bloggers, we have serious business to discuss, dissect and diss!
Diss is still a common colloquialism right? Oh god, am I getting old?!
Reader Comments (15)
I totally agree that there is a lack of communication between Blizzard and their customers. I really admire Mythic for the incredible amount of information "face to face" with podcast and post on forums directly form the developers.
I look forward to something like that for Blizzard.
I'm a regular poster on my realm forums, but I avoid almost all others like the plague. There's such a high volume of conflicting information, whining and crying, it's hard to sort out what you really need/want to know.
I occasionally post in my realm forums but other than that, I tend not to, and just monitor blue posts via sites dedicated to that subject.
I post on the WOW EU hunter forums everyday if i can offering advise and help to those who ask it and refer them to my blog or ones i know that can answer their problems.
/agree whole heartily. Blizz needs to step up to the plate and
keep it's many customers updated at the very least.
Agreed, but as a player I've seen to many QQ'ers out there. personally, playing back in vanilla WoW, us WoW'ers have gotten more picky. We want this, we want that, for christs sake people, give it a rest. Learn to be patient (patient is a vertue). You want all this stuff and Blizzard is giving it to you, but it just takes time. Go play another game if you have nothing to do, or better yet go outside, call up some friends. Do something rather than QQ about it on the computer. Nice post iTZKooPA!
"the majority of the forum is used as a soapbox by angry and disenfranchised players"
This is exactly why I do not check the official forums, unless I really REALLY need some information. Too many people that go waaay off topic and/or flame for whatever reason without explaining why they think that way. However what you're suggesting, should they start this, actually will convince me to want to check the forums (or wherever it's going to be posted) more regularly.
I'm completely in agreement with you on this subject, iTZKooPA. I can count on one hand the number of times that I've visited the forums in my entire WoW career (at 2+ years), and that's because I come across a "wall of topics" when I go there. Since it's quite time-consuming to sort through the morass of brag/QQ/repeat topics, I only go to the Blizzard forums as a last resort.
I agree with you. Though I tend to "lurk" some of the forums for "useful" information, it tends to be full of QQers.
I would be awesome if Blizzard had a weekly wrap-up with their posts and other updates. Heck, they could even do a monthly wrap-up machinima video... *Bringing back the Gnomeregan Gnews Gnetwork*
you cant admire mythic when your continent doesnt have forums, son communication between europeans and mythic...
forgot to say @luigi
I totally agree with you. As I've said on a previous blog, under the name Nathan Harris, very few people actually visit the actual official blogs and forums on the WoW sites. I never even care to go there personally; unless there's a link to the blue comments. I just find that forums can be too time consuming just to catch up on a day's worth of posts, or finding exactly what you're looking for. If I ever do, it'd take a topic that I'm passionate about to post on it. Thought, with PL I have no problem doing that :P
I rarely go to the official forums, and then only usually my main realm forum and maybe one of the tech or news forums if there's some sort of problem I want to see if there's a solution to. The official forums are poorly moderated for the most part, and are mostly filled with people that have no business being on the internet interacting with other people... IMO Blizzard will never be able to be as thorough and impartial as a third-party fansite anyways, so I'd rather they not even bother. As long as the fansites continue to flourish, there is no need for Blizzard to change the status quo of their website or forums.
Blizzard = to big, to powerful.
I won't say Blizzard don not care for the players and the game but with this power, they have become more distanced from the community.
Mythic are it seems paddling hard in a ship that may sink (I hope it does not) so have a vested interest in keeping the PR to the fore.
They are prepared to say "ok it's not working right but we will fix it!". If Blizzard say anything at all it is only to deny a problem then pass of the fix as an improvement.
Blizzard should begin to trust its player base, we know when it's not working right (to good/bad) but just speaking plainly and honestly to us seems to frighten them.
While Blizzard has nothing in an official sense, there are other online resources that do parse the forums to create concise listings of important posts by Blizzard employees.