So in the midst of all the Blizzard internal problems with sexual harrassment and abuse and generally being a bucnh of dogshit. Blizzard has been trying to do damage control around Would of Warcraft. They first removed emotes like /spit from the game entirely, then they started removing /joke from many of the characters possibly joke pool. Then they began to remove "sexual" content from the game like changing paintings of women into bowls of fruit https://www.vgr.com/forum/topic/12236-why-is-blizzard-replacing-women-with-bowls-of-fruit/
Top that off with some other changes like removing NPC's named after devs after those devs were accused of shit.
None of that really mattered to the players because none of that is why the game is bad. And for years and years Blizzard has refused to listen to the playerbase about the problems they have with the game. Players complain about the systems in a given expansion, or they complain about class balance being obviously bad, or they complain about RNg mechanics with loot making it impossible to gear your character correctly. All of these things are ignored until usually the last patch of any given expansion in which Blizzard would finally listen and adjust some of the complaints only to add new problems with the next expansion and the cycle repeats.
So this time around Blizzard has decided to create a council of players that would be hand selected by them for the specific purpose of gathering feedback on the game from a small handful of players that play difference aspects of the game. This way they could in theory gather clearer feedback from a select group of players without all the extra noise that appears on forums with people trolling or whatever. Admittedly it's a good idea, and it's a wonder why they don't listen to these players during BETAs when players warn them that the system in the BETA sucks a bag of balls.
Whatever.
Anyway the Council has been out for about three weeks. And basically all the council does is have access to a smaller general forum on the WoW website. Blizzard has barely responed to any of the feedback given by these hand selected people, and doesn't appear to be listening. So the community council decided to create a discord server in which anyone could join and provide feedback for the game which the community council members could share on this special wow forum through a filter of being a council member that Blizzard should be listening to better.
Well, of course any open discord has trolls and this happened.
kotaku.com
But as per usual with Kotaku that isn't quite what happened.
Asmongold interviewed the council members that got instantly banned from the council due to what appeared to happen in the Kotaku article. And the Council member address very specifically the discord message of "too many black people in Stormwind." Because he knows that a lot of european players are joining the discord and many people who can't speak english very well might express themselves inappropriately. So he asked the guy, "are you racist, or do you mean something else." because maybe the player is ba at english and he wanted to give the player the benefit of the doubt to try and reexplain his meaning.
Then what happened is some other users take the messages from discord out of context and have a shit fit on twitter. Blizzard is terrified of Twitter so they instantly ban the council member without any sort of investigation or even asking the council member what had happened.
During the Asmongold interview though the council members talk about the fact that Blizzard gave them no instructions and barely replied to any feedback given by the council members on this special forum. It seemed to be a useless venture entirely done as an illusion to make the community THINK that Blizzard gives a shit about feedback, when even this enhanced feedback forum is ignored and given no direction.
Many community council members that are still technically involved are now protesting the initiative, and demanding interaction and acknowledgement from Blizzard that this isn't just PR bullshit and they are actually paying some sort of attention to the feedback provide. It's frustration from people who still, somehow, clearly love the game and are desperately trying to get Blizzard to make it better. Frankly it's really sad to see, and this just highlights the writing that has been on the wall for a long time now. WoW is done, and there is nothing that will pull it back off the edge it has fallen from.
Top that off with some other changes like removing NPC's named after devs after those devs were accused of shit.
None of that really mattered to the players because none of that is why the game is bad. And for years and years Blizzard has refused to listen to the playerbase about the problems they have with the game. Players complain about the systems in a given expansion, or they complain about class balance being obviously bad, or they complain about RNg mechanics with loot making it impossible to gear your character correctly. All of these things are ignored until usually the last patch of any given expansion in which Blizzard would finally listen and adjust some of the complaints only to add new problems with the next expansion and the cycle repeats.
So this time around Blizzard has decided to create a council of players that would be hand selected by them for the specific purpose of gathering feedback on the game from a small handful of players that play difference aspects of the game. This way they could in theory gather clearer feedback from a select group of players without all the extra noise that appears on forums with people trolling or whatever. Admittedly it's a good idea, and it's a wonder why they don't listen to these players during BETAs when players warn them that the system in the BETA sucks a bag of balls.
Whatever.
Anyway the Council has been out for about three weeks. And basically all the council does is have access to a smaller general forum on the WoW website. Blizzard has barely responed to any of the feedback given by these hand selected people, and doesn't appear to be listening. So the community council decided to create a discord server in which anyone could join and provide feedback for the game which the community council members could share on this special wow forum through a filter of being a council member that Blizzard should be listening to better.
Well, of course any open discord has trolls and this happened.
World Of Warcraft Turmoil Around Sudden Appearance Of People Of Color Is Surprisingly Complex
An unofficial community council Discord server is blowing up with discussions of race inclusion
kotaku.com
But as per usual with Kotaku that isn't quite what happened.
Asmongold interviewed the council members that got instantly banned from the council due to what appeared to happen in the Kotaku article. And the Council member address very specifically the discord message of "too many black people in Stormwind." Because he knows that a lot of european players are joining the discord and many people who can't speak english very well might express themselves inappropriately. So he asked the guy, "are you racist, or do you mean something else." because maybe the player is ba at english and he wanted to give the player the benefit of the doubt to try and reexplain his meaning.
Then what happened is some other users take the messages from discord out of context and have a shit fit on twitter. Blizzard is terrified of Twitter so they instantly ban the council member without any sort of investigation or even asking the council member what had happened.
During the Asmongold interview though the council members talk about the fact that Blizzard gave them no instructions and barely replied to any feedback given by the council members on this special forum. It seemed to be a useless venture entirely done as an illusion to make the community THINK that Blizzard gives a shit about feedback, when even this enhanced feedback forum is ignored and given no direction.
Many community council members that are still technically involved are now protesting the initiative, and demanding interaction and acknowledgement from Blizzard that this isn't just PR bullshit and they are actually paying some sort of attention to the feedback provide. It's frustration from people who still, somehow, clearly love the game and are desperately trying to get Blizzard to make it better. Frankly it's really sad to see, and this just highlights the writing that has been on the wall for a long time now. WoW is done, and there is nothing that will pull it back off the edge it has fallen from.
