Malan

[color=red]Edit - While the original post talked about "delivery methods", the discussion that followed has honed in on the real problem - the tooltips and other information we get in-game about how the Blizzard world functions are often incorrect or misleading. That's the root of the issue here.[/color=red]


Couple of days ago I made a post in a thread that was being actively responded to by a CM, response and post are here. I wasn't very satisfied with her response, I think it dodged the issue quite a bit.

Systems of information distribution in WoW:

• Official Forums ("blue" posts)
• 3rd Party forums, news sites (MMO-Champion, World of Raids, EJ forums)
• Patch Notes
• Tidbits of info on the main WoW website or the launcher application

Problem: With the exception of patch notes, the systems of information distribution listed above do not come to the player, the player must go to the system. Any player who does not frequent the official forum or a 3rd party news site is never made aware of important upcoming changes relevant to their characters. Without specific information from Blizzard we'll never know for sure what percent of the player population actively uses the official forums, but I think we can all agree that it is some non-trivial value.

Patch notes are a bit of a special case I think. The CM response to my post was that patch notes fulfill the obligation of providing info to players. However, I think its fair to say that most players are going to take a look at the patch note window and immediately close it without reading it - its poorly formatted, frequently terribly lengthy

, and squished into a tiny box that requires frequently scrolling. The 2.0 and 2.1 patch notes are prime examples of ways to get your player base to not read the patch notes, due to the extremely long lists of items, quest changes, changes to mobs, etc. The average guy is not going to read that stuff.

Dilemma: Lack of relevant information leads to players making less than optimal choices for their class, which they probably wouldn't make if they were armed with the proper facts. Things like shaman still mixing Windfury ranks 5/4, not being aware of the 3 second WF cooldown, lots of people that think the Windfury totem change is coming next patch, to name a few that I see on a regular basis.

Possible solutions: So the challenge as I see it is that Blizzard really needs to step up their delivery of information to *every* player, not just those who visit their forums or some other sites. Why not generate an in-game newsletter that pops up in everyone's mail box with some of the latest information that was discussed on the forums? Patch notes that pop-up in-game, filtered to be relevant to your character class?
Would this not be a better model for reaching the player base? Are there better ways to accomplish this?

Edit - For those just coming in, we're not talking about exposing inner mechanics of the combat system, the discussion has moved beyond that a bit. We're talking about correcting tooltips and making less ambiguous statements so that people can actually tell the difference between good and bad items/spells/effects. Give them the tools they need to learn about their class.

Vyktianity already has over 75 billion followers. The first verse in his book "Gift of the Wild" is "In the beginning Vyk cast lifebloom and then maul."

 

◊ Praetorian

What people don't know won't hurt them. As you yourself know, most enhancement shamans are running around with 1.8 speed mainhands, dropping GoA for their melee groups, and not knowing any better. What does Blizzard have to gain from sending a personalized letter to Joe Clueless that essentially reads, "Hi, you probably don't understand half of this, but we nerfed you because you were too strong. Enjoy your time in the World of Warcraft!"

A huge portion of the playerbase is casual beyond what anyone who reads this board would ever consider "casual." Avid fans seek out the information they care about, under the current system. Casual players will hear about the big stuff, "Hey, there's a new dungeon in the next patch" or "Arenas are now live!" or "there's an expansion coming out next year that'll raise the level cap to 80 and let people interact with Arthas."

From a purely self-interested perspective, why should Blizzard do what you suggest?

 

Malan

Well one could argue that lack of information often *does* have a negative impact on the player, his guild, anyone that he groups with. Just this week I raised a question about deadly vs instant poison in my guild and found that our rogues had never heard about the change that allowed deady poison to stack for all rogues. They made the change and last night their poison DPS was much higher as a result. They weren't gimped by it, but they weren't doing their highest potential either.

This topic was bouncing around in my head last week after looking over some of the silly applications to some raiding guilds and seeing how some of these guys would probably be good players if they got straightened out. We've had plenty of people mention the lack of quality apps recently, and one could posit that part of that is that some of these players have just never gotten the information they needed to improve themselves.

I think that Blizzard's interest in this would simply be improved customer support. A lot of information on their site and much of their printed instruction material is horribly outdated, and shows no signs of ever being corrected. They're already making an effort to publish the information via CMs on the forums, I believe they just need to take it a step farther.

Vyktianity already has over 75 billion followers. The first verse in his book "Gift of the Wild" is "In the beginning Vyk cast lifebloom and then maul."

 

• caladein

The MOTD when the interface changes went in where very much along the lines of what Malan is asking for.

I think listing the exact ability in a personalized confirmation box is going a bit far though. Something along the lines of a MOTD stating the classes that were "significantly effected" by the patch and where they can check out the patch notes seems more in-vein with what Blizzard has done in the past.

On top of that though, there could be a significantly better use of the brief summary section of the notes on installation.

 

Osse

It's not just the changes they make without informing people very well thats wrong. 90% (number thrown out of head) of the hunters dont even know half of the class mechanics because they've only been explained in a few threads in this and maybe a couple other forums.

I would go with the line Praetorian started with; What people don't know won't hurt them.

Most people dont play this game hardcore and they dont have to push it to the limit to succeed and some have fun in Karazhan.

 

Jameseh

Essentially, what people don't know can't hurt them. As Praetorian said, a very large portion of the player base is not aware of some of the most basic details of their class, confusing them with patch notes about nerfs to their own class isn't going to do a great load of good, in my opinion. A good example of this is the 10% coefficient taxing on the improved fireball and frostbolt spells that does not appear on the talent tooltip. I can guarantee you that 75% of level 70 mages are completely unaware of its existence.

I guess putting a link to patch notes when they're released on the launcher application will suffice.

Edit: Damn you, Osse. I hadn't seen your post when I started mine, the opening line wasn't intentionally stolen from you.

 

Krollin

You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.

An old adage but applicable here.

The responsibility to inform lies with Blizzard and they already do this through News, Blue Posts and Patch Notes.

I don't think anyone here would disagree that the information made public by Blizzard is not always what we want to see. Even the accuracy of this information is sometimes doubtful.

At the end of the day though the responsibility to remain informed lies firmly with the player.

You can provide all the information and discussion forums you like, if someone cannot be bothered to keep themselves upto date that is, to be blunt, their own stupid fault.
You can see what happens when people don't do this, the Official Forums are full of the brainless braying and whining produced by the uninformed there.

Blizzard are fulfilling their obligations strictly to the letter. They have an active Official Website which is regularly updated and is tolerably accurate. The forums we all know about.
Rare is the informative Thread which hasn't been trolled and "lol, first"ed to death.

As to what Blizzard tell us?
I wish they would be more accurate with their Patch notes and have less stealth changes in patches. I want to be informed.
I don't want them to give us everything though,

With certain knowledge of how the game works in every detail there would be less incentive for forums like this one and other to even exist.

A very clever move by Blizzard in fact, they have learnt that they only need to do enough and leave enough carrots dangling to activate the community. The rest is done by people like the active contributors to EJ and other forums and those who read them but don't contribute that much.

At the end of the day though you can only advertise your presence, you cannot force people to come to you and get involved.

Blizzard have learnt this a long time ago.

Do they do enough?
I think so, apart from my wish for more complete Patch notes I am glad they don't actually do any more.
If they had have done, where would EJ and other noteworthy community "hubs" be today?

 

Siddown

There will always be players (and it's likely the majority) who just don't care about the "little" things. If someone is content with doing a few five mans and hopping into the occasional BG while key turning and clicking their abilities, I don't see why Blizzard needs to forcefeed them information that they'll likely just click through anyways.

The problem I have is it's very difficult for people who actually want information to get anything from Blizzard at all, and when we do get information, it's often incorrect.

 

Malan

My argument is that people aren't being led to the water in the first place. The drinking is their responsibility, yes.

Look at this way. CM makes a fairly important post about a mechanic change that will affect a lot of people. That post is bumped for a couple days, and then dies down as normal forum traffic pushes it to the bottom of the pile. Now, you would say that Blizzard has done their job. They posted some info about a change. But where is that change recorded? When Joe-New-Guy or Joe-Not-Enough-Time-To-Troll-Forums looks in his instruction manual, or at the official website, where is that information updated to reflect those changes?

Maybe I'm making an argument that not many will agree with I guess. But I think its incorrect to say that "what you dont' know can't hurt you." I think every player wants to do well in the game, feel 'powerful' as a character, and probably be regarded as competent by the people he interacts with. I feel that a pretty big void of information is what those players are missing to do so.

Vyktianity already has over 75 billion followers. The first verse in his book "Gift of the Wild" is "In the beginning Vyk cast lifebloom and then maul."

 

Farstrider

Well, I agree with Malan, I must say. Unless I'd stumbled upon this website I'd still be as clueless as I was back spamming the next ability to come up as a level 60 hunter in MC. The game has changed massively since release but there is no real attempt to guide players to play "in the right way". Why shouldn't there be a "l2p" option at the class trainer that tells you what's changed recently in the world of your class, and gives lower level players tips on how to perform that class's role properly/better?

For a huge and diverse game, there is basically no proper manual whatsoever.

John O'Groats to Lands End 2009 for Leukaemia Research

 

Krollin

How are Blizzard supposed to inform people about things like this?

They already have Official Forum Roundups and there are the various scraper sites which pull the Blue posts off the Official Forums.

Important changes will often be incorporated into Patch notes or announced on the Forums or via News. Blizzard already make it blatantly obvious that there is an Official Website and Forums, the WoW Client Loader takes its HTML from that very site and you can click the links.

Blizzard already provide a newsletter by the way. I am a subscriber. It isn't that informative but it does do enough to cause me to go hunting things down. I am by nature inquisitive. Many are not though and that is the problem.

Blizzard can only do so much, The rest is up to the individual.

You could argue that they could provide RSS feeds for things like this. They don't but others do. None of this is of any use if people cannot be bothered to go look for themselves.

In this day and age we have unprecedented access to information from all kinds of sources.
But there are still people who don't watch TV, listen to radio or read books though and don't mention the Internet or the World Wide Web.
Faced with that kind of stubborness would you want to push those people to inform themselves?
I certainly wouldn't be keen to have such a Sisyphean [edit: thanks to Stangg) task to perform.

The fact that this and many community sites exist is because Blizzard don't do it all for us.
I am glad of that.
The fact that you, me and many others know about EJ etc proves that the community is working.

No matter what Blizzard provide in terms of learning aids, source of information and news there will be always be people who simply won't use them. The majority won't in fact.

Let us not lose sight of the fact that a game like WoW is a journey of discovery as much as anything else. The technical details are being released as the game evolves. As I said, no matter how much Blizzard invest in making sure people can inform themselves the responsibility to do so still lies with each of us.

Let me put this another way, would you like to see Patch X.Y being delayed because all the "l2p" interactivity had to be tested for example?
I certainly would not and it would be a nail in the coffin for WoW as far I am concerned if it happened.

 

Kink

But the fact is, if you want to play a hunter, all you need to do is just spam those buttons. If you want to excel at being a hunter, then you go and do research.

With every class given to several different playstyles, who is there to define how to play a class "the right way". Most people do not care about min maxing. They don't care about a lot of things other than "Can I beat this mob on my own?".

Blizzard would go to a lot of extra effort to implement a feature that the vast majority of the playerbase would immediately want to switch off. For those of us who really want that information, we also spend time on forums, as well as WoW news websites that sum up all these little tidbits. So in the end after spending time to implement this feature... what would change?

There is light at the end of the tunnel.
The only problem is, it's often an incoming train.

 

Malan

Patch notes are rarely a sufficient source of information. They lack the context of all the discussion on the boards with CMs pushing out developer intent. How about the change where mages spell coefficient was lowered when they take talents that decrease their casting time? Where's the context for that in a patch note? If that's the first place you're reading it, all you see is that your class just took a heavy beating with the nerf stick with no explanation.

Vyktianity already has over 75 billion followers. The first verse in his book "Gift of the Wild" is "In the beginning Vyk cast lifebloom and then maul."

 

andastra

Most of WoW's players are casual and couldn't care less. Some, however, would want to know more. I think the problem is that once you miss the patch where something is put in or weren't an active reader of EJ when something is discovered/discussed, you're going to miss it. Let's say Joe casual decides to go hardcore today or let's say he just decides he wants to get better. If he's a mage, he wouldn't know about the coefficient nerf to fireball/frostbolt unless he reads patch notes three patches back. If he's a hunter, he wouldn't know about shot rotations unless he reads something in here or on the official forums that are likely buried way past page 1.

 

Krollin

Absolutely agree with you on this point.

The client updater could provide active links to the relevant forum Threads for each major patch section and a link to the Patch notes on the Website as well.
That would be a technical nobrainer.

Having the Patch notes saved as an HTML page on your box would be something I would welcome and is also no showstopper to implement.

 

Malan

Exactly.

And this isn't a "hardcore vs casual" issue at all. As I noted in the OP, I've encountered people in high end guilds who were missing information on their class and playing according to the old rules. You can say "well they should have done some research" but what does that mean? I'm supposed to research to find a change that I'm not even aware of?

Here's one for you - a very talented and well geared shaman in an old guild of mine never took the Healing Wave talent that reduced cast time b y 0.5 seconds. Reason why? His understanding is that +Heal/Dmg is reduced according to the cast time of the spell. He had no idea that talents which change cast times are not subject to that rule. But there's no info of this sort anywhere to be found on any official WoW source. Sure, WoWwiki.com has info on this stuff, but Blizzard has also said that they do not expect their players to need to use 3rd party sources for anything. Blizzard themselves should be the defining resource for information, but they aren't.

Vyktianity already has over 75 billion followers. The first verse in his book "Gift of the Wild" is "In the beginning Vyk cast lifebloom and then maul."

 

Krollin

In essence yes although you are not actually doing it like that or for that specific reason.
You show sufficient interest in the game and how you play it to go looking for more information about how the game really works.

The information is out there, Google is a wonderful tool which can help you in your quest (mildly amusing inference intended).

You still have to go looking regardless of how complete this information is and where it is made available. Knowing how and where to look is part of all of this. Many people simply don't have the skills, desire or even a need to do so though.

Did you know that all the patch notes are available on the Blizzard Website? They are you know and they are linked from the Patch Notes page too.

Actually Blizzard have been very clear about the fact that they will never provide details on any of their games to the extent that you seem to want.

Their rationale is simple: they want people to play and discover their games. It also saves them a fortune on web site maintenance not having to keep all this updated; they don't do it we, the community do.

I sense I am starting to repeat myself too, time to take a back seat and watch the show some more.

 

Malan

I'm using the word 'I' in a figurative sense. I'm not the one who needs the help, I'm arguing on behalf of those who do.

Vyktianity already has over 75 billion followers. The first verse in his book "Gift of the Wild" is "In the beginning Vyk cast lifebloom and then maul."

 

Krollin

Always a dangerous thing to do, be figurative

The ones that you are arguing so eloquently and lucidly for don't give a flying monkeys. Well most of them anyway. They wouldn't even know about it because they don't read the words even when they are put in front of them.

Ironic really.

 

Metrosexuelf

Agreed. People tend to overestimate the players that make up the vast majority of WoW's playerbase.

It's not like information on game changes is being published in obscure classified ads like settlement decisions and government auctions. It's the 21st century. It's safe to say 100% of the people who play WoW also browse the internet. Common sense would suggest if people want to know what is happening in terms of game development they would go to the game website.

Disagree. There is nothing on 3rd party websites that can't be figured out by playing the game and examing the talents, spells, testing rotations, etc. yourself. Obviously not everyone is going to go through that but that doesn't mean it's incumbent on Blizzard to publish extensive guides and spreadsheets like you see on EJ, WoWwiki, WoWhead, etc. Let's say I go pick up a copy of BioShockand I'm having trouble on the third level. Am I going to go to the official BioShock website to look for tips? Of course not, I'd go to one of several third party sites or forums. This has been pretty much standard practice for the gaming industry since the internet hit it's stride back in the mid 90's.

 

Floria

Just because people have completely and utterly min-maxed World of Warcraft does not mean that Blizzard likes it, or is happy to allow more people to do so. It is a video game like any other, and the huge fan base plus official forums and chat allow knowledge to disseminate.

How many other games do you know where they explain the actual mechanics for players? People do absurd custom Super Mario Bros levels that *rely* on glitches in the game's physics that wouldn't have even been admitted by Nintendo. True, that's single player, but hardcore Street Fighter/Tekken/whatever players rely upon pulling off moves *at a specific frame of animation* to continue combos, or to gain extremely short-term invincibility. This while Little Jimmy still can't manage to do a Hadouken half the time.

Some things become relatively obvious to anyone who wants to experiment: A hunter plays around with his shots a bit, auto-shots five times, notices that Steady Shot went off and auto-shot did not. "Hmm, maybe if I shoot *between* auto-shots...Success!"

Granted, figuring out Shaman Windfury that way wouldn't happen, but when you decide you want to play better, you go to the WoW forums, and there gleaming at the top are stickies that will tell you more than you ever realized you needed to know. When that's mastered, by that time someone's name-dropped Elitist Jerks, and you go there.

The information's available, but I don't think Blizzard has any more responsibility to cram it in everyone's face than Chess sets by necessity should include 500 page books analyzing opening gambits.

 

Farstrider

Well, I think the point that I'm trying to make is that WoW is far more accessible to the "masses" than most MMORPGs before it (or so I am told - WoW is my first MMORPG), and with that accessibility comes a huge number of people who are clueless.

I'm not saying that the hunter trainer should show people how to interweave autoshot and specials, but some sort of clue of what stats the hunter should be going for, that sort of thing, would not be out of place in game in my opinion.

John O'Groats to Lands End 2009 for Leukaemia Research

 

Cromfel

Its beyond me why they havent implemented target dummys. It would be such an easy way to actually study your class. "Hmm, what happens in long run if I keep using this button instead of that". They have models for them, Theramore and Shattered Halls to give few examples. Many citys could have shooting ranges like those where people can go test things with their friends.

If they arent willing to give the information, why not give proper ingame tools to study your own class? Dr Boom and Blasted Lands mobs are there already. Why leave it to such. Lets say they gave Green dummys, whos got low armor and are lvl 60, 70 and 73. Orange dummys with leather/mail kin of armor ratings and last plated red dummys.

.:. Retribution Paladin Hideout .:. http://cromfel.battlefield.fi/

 

Alieria

I'd say that I'm one of the types that could use something that Malan is arguing for.

Sometimes, I have less time to read changes then I'd like - I try to go over the patch notes, but as its been said, it becomes fairly tedious when finding info about quests or mobs I could care less about. At least they separate raid/dungeon changes.

And what about undocumented changes or "a number of epic items have had their stats reallocated" type changes? I only find these changes out through my (fairly irregular) visits to here or WoR.

I guess what I'd really like is a more detailed version of the "this week in wow" post that used to be done on the general WoW forums.

 

Mikari

I guess you haven't checked inside your WoW folder for a while, because they already store the patch notes as a HTML file.