SC:L Article - Battle.net 2.0 Concerns

[Gradius]

This article is addressed to both Blizzard as well as the community to voice our concerns about the direction of Battle.net 2.0: http://sclegacy.com/articles/730-battlenet-20-concerns

Mad props to Gifted and LoA for the countless man hours devoted to writing this article; truly it is a beast. I'd like to share this comment left by Gifted while they were working on it:

Sorry I fell asleep on the keyboard last night, surprised that I didn't leave any collateral damage on the document. Been working on it further this morning.

I hope the article adequately reflects all your thoughts as well; it is our intention to send a message with this article and hopefully generate some sort of impact.

[LordofAscension]

I hope everyone enjoys.

Thanks to Gradius and rise for support and the rest of the SC:L staff who found the time to contribute.

~LoA

[Gifted]

I wouldn't stop there, much of this information was inspired directly by concerns of the community that matched directly with our own. Thank you to the community for your contributions and thoughts around the forums and beyond.

[newcomplex]

Heh, I stumbled onto that article on from the little window boxes at the top fifteen minutes ago. I have to say it is the most perfect articulation of the problem I've ever read. Basically this articulates everything I've thought about the issue and a bunch of stuff I haven't.

Mad props to Gifted and LoA for writing this. Seriously, this puts any superficial kittens video to shame.

I tried to write something like this on the b-net forums and so much got lost from head to text :P. Totally agree on how the central issue of this isn't greed or idiocy but a lack of meaningful dialogue and insular thinking.

post 256: http://forums.battle.net/thread.html...5000&pageNo=13

# A remedy to this is to open communications. Open up dialogue. Get more (good) -cms. But it isn't just a one sided thing, more meaningful feedback also needs to reach the ears of the developer, and to be meaningfully discussed. You posted something earlier along these lines, and I think right now Blizzard should focus on that. Call me naive, but I still think Blizzard has it's customers interests at heart, that you guys want to make a good game as much as you want to make a good profit, and right now as Blizzard is probably growing in size day by day, you need to really take an active stance in ensuring that continues.

Blizzard needs to read this article you guys wrote. And not through a list of memos and reports from a CM.

[Gifted]

Thanks for the thoughts NewComplex. Now, don't get me wrong, it may be elaborate and very well thought out, but it doesn't conclusively share ALL of our concerns on battle.net. We have more, but frankly, this thing is a beast so far. We also felt it important to provide suggestions for solutions, even if they aren't THE solution, it could be the step in the right direction in terms of finding the true resolution at the end.

[newcomplex]

Thanks for the thoughts NewComplex. Now, don't get me wrong, it may be elaborate and very well thought out, but it doesn't conclusively share ALL of our concerns on battle.net. We have more, but frankly, this thing is a beast so far. We also felt it important to provide suggestions for solutions, even if they aren't THE solution, it could be the step in the right direction in terms of finding the true resolution at the end.

The part that really made me happy was your small segment that the core issue is the lack of communication and insular thinking on behalf of Blizzard, what I think is really the root of the problem. It was a perfect articulation of my thoughts on the issue. I'm sure their are many more you could write about

We could give them all the ideas in the world, and if that isn't fixed, it wouldn't matter. The issue is as you said, a gradual fading of the player perspective on blizzards behalf. Its how statements like "Do you really want chat channels" became an acceptable viewpoint from Blizzard developers. And I think if they take to heart the importance of reengaging meaningful community dialogue in such a constantly growing company, really, they don't need us for every individual suggestion. Their skilled designers, we just need to make sure we're designing for the same goal.


Obviously b-net has many more specific, individual issues, but I think a lot of them are things that aren't really in our power to fix simply because theirs so many. They have a set of priorities, and we have a set of priorities, and our number one should be making our priorities resemble each other more. This means on our behalf they need to give clear communication on there priorities, some which seems controversial in our eyes, like Facebook intergration, and get us to understand them, and we need to ensure they understand our set of priorities, which they don't presently do.

[Gifted]

That's true, but at the same time it's important to switch shoes and realize that phrases like what you said cause parts of the degradation of the communication as well. It's also our perception of Blizzard individually as well. People who assume that Blizzard doesn't care about anything but Money won't be able to contribute in meaningful conversation easily if in reality Blizzard is being 100% honest and wants to make a great game. But the article touches on that far better than I am right now. You've even said that yourself as well in the item you quoted above

In other words, we're on the same page.

[newcomplex]

People who assume that Blizzard doesn't care about anything but Money won't be able to contribute in meaningful conversation easily if in reality Blizzard is being 100% honest and wants to make a great game.

Yeah, we're basically on the same page, and thats why I like this article so much .

I get pretty pissed when I see people ruining some legit issue with OMG BOBBY KOTICK IS LIEK HEAD OF BLIZZARD AND HES TEH DEVIL, but at the same time, I get where their coming from.

Its basically the result of a decade of a complete lack of communication in regards to Starcraft. WoW moderators interact a lot more frequently and ghostcrawler sometimes holds meaningful conversations, but as far as Starcraft goes, nothing. It isn't at all hard to think that they're just a bunch of faceless suits. I know enough to know its more complex then that, but it isn't a random fear.

And likewise, I bet it isn't hard for them to think we're just a bunch of kids screaming "OMG BOBBY KOTICK IS LIEK HEAD OF BLIZZARD AND HES TEH DEVIL".
----


Hey Gifted, have you ever played EvE online? One thing I think that would benefit both the community and blizzard as a company would be to adopt a bit of their practices. Specifically, CCP, the dev studio behind it, has this elected "player council" which is comprised of a bunch of community representatives from casual-core to hardcore which go meet CCP in person a couple times a year to discuss issues the community has been having.

As a result, from my couple years playing EvE, I've seen tons of people call CCP idiots, not knowing what they're doing, but I've seen like all of two people call of money-grubbing drones or something with that gist.

I think that system would work really well for Blizzard.

[Gifted]

Yeah, we're basically on the same page, and thats why I like this article so much .

kk Good to confirm

Its basically the result of a decade of a complete lack of communication in regards to Starcraft. WoW moderators interact a lot more frequently and ghostcrawler sometimes holds meaningful conversations, but as far as Starcraft goes, nothing. It isn't at all hard to think that they're just a bunch of faceless suits. I know enough to know its more complex then that, but it isn't a random fear.

Well, this is another example of people needing to step back and examine themselves more so. For example, were you aware of a thread which constituted 20 replies from Xordiah within a handful of hours? It was a full conversation trying to find solutions to a problem. I'd deem that "Meaningful conversation". Also, the amount of communication on the battle.net beta forums is rather substancial compared to the old days of Karune sending less than 200 words every 4 business days. But even so, we got QA batches every 10 business days at that time, so it evened out. The communication has been there, but it wasn't always meaningful. (with the exception of droughts leading up to Blizzcons, but I digress)

Hey Gifted, have you ever played EvE online? One thing I think that would benefit both the community and blizzard as a company would be to adopt a bit of their practices. Specifically, CCP, the dev studio behind it, has this elected "player council" which is comprised of a bunch of community representatives from casual-core to hardcore which go meet CCP in person a couple times a year to discuss issues the community has been having.

As a result, from my couple years playing EvE, I've seen tons of people call CCP idiots, not knowing what they're doing, but I've seen like all of two people call of money-grubbing drones or something with that gist.

I think that system would work really well for Blizzard.

I have not played EvE online, but I am familiar with the CCP and whatnot. When I consulted for other companies, that hit the bullet list of meetings more than once in more than one company. It's one of many viable solutions with pros and cons. While I can see benefits, I also don't know if that's the exact solution that would work for Blizzard. Personally though, it can always provoke some interesting discussion as a consideration. (My opinions at least on the matter)

[newcomplex]

Well, this is another example of people needing to step back and examine themselves more so. For example, were you aware of a thread which constituted 20 replies from Xordiah within a handful of hours? It was a full conversation trying to find solutions to a problem. I'd deem that "Meaningful conversation". Also, the amount of communication on the battle.net beta forums is rather substancial compared to the old days of Karune sending less than 200 words every 4 business days. But even so, we got QA batches every 10 business days at that time, so it evened out. The communication has been there, but it wasn't always meaningful. (with the exception of droughts leading up to Blizzcons, but I digress)

Yeah, I saw that thread. I was a bit disappointed I couldn't chime in because it was on EU, and but it was certainly a step forward. Bashioks also said that they're working on some redress on the communities concerns, and the fact that he told us ahead of time was kind of nice.

Overally, it could be seen as getting better, but really, prior to the collective community outburst I didn't see a single thread that constituted "dialogue" since the very beginning of the beta.

I disagree however that the QA batches counted for much. It wasn't communication, it was information. It wasn't a reciprocal process. The information was often criticized as irrelevant. So yeah, it just served to tell the community "we're still doing something". I doubt anything about the QA went past the PR division besides asking a few questions about some unit or feature.

My main issue isn't really about the frequency of blue posts. Rather, the depth of a blue post. I can't think of a single Blue post that detailed the development of anything for example. I'm sure they don't know off the top of their head, blizzards a big company, and I wouldn't expect them to know. (Which creates problems in itself). Blue posts rarely exceed the depth of PR, and what the community is concerned about is what goes on beyond PR. As you said in the article, open dialogue. The Blues play the game, but they should probably be more versed in development as well so the conversations in general can be more deep and more meaningful for both parties. Maybe that might require a expansion of the PR division, but I think at the end it would be a net benefit.

Blizzards stance whenever the community gets angry about something is just to basically let it simmer. Generally, while this creates a kind of distrustful atmosphere, we forgive, because for most of us Blizzard hasn't disappointed. But now Blizzard is certainly in a position to disappoint. In fact, no matter what they do at this point, B-net 2.0 is certainly going to disappoint, I'll be disappointed on the omission of chat channels alone. (I don't foresee them, regardless of how sincerely the they take our feedback, to practically develop chat channels by release). So I think they really need to focus on both ensuring this doesn't happen again and making the community feel like it won't happen again.

Right now, they've made small steps, but it isn't on the level it needs to be. But its helped. For instance, the amount of people "boycotting" (lol, so they say) SC has dropped by 20% in the last week and I think more then the fact everyones sort of just simmering down, the subsequent blue responses both which either were or hinted at (In bashes case) a more deep level of dialogue did help substantially.