Zifna

You guys caught this yet? Just saw it.

WoW -> Community -> Guild Relations -> Guild Nexus

WoW -> Community -> Guild Relations


/boggle

 

Chewy

Sounds like a community-enriching program... Sounds great except you have to go through WoW forums. I.E. work done on these forums doesn't matter for it.

 

Rayeth

I dunno. I'm going to reserve my judgment on this until I see any of that actually pan out, but no doubt this is an amazing recruitment tool. A permanent link on Blizzard's website to your guild's homepage is like free advertising that you are looking for people (whether or not you are).

 

Buiden

That was my only gripe about the whole thing. A lot of us purposely avoid the WoW forums because of the raging cest pool they are and that automatically excludes you from this program.

Also if this is the "Guild Relations" program what about us guilds that got TBC beta keys for being in the program already? Or was that different?

The original email I received:


Congrats to those guilds selected only good things can come from this.

 

goodr

I think it's a sound idea to try to organize constructive feedback from a small group that isn't likely to only consist of the higher end raiding guilds. This is a chance for them to intently listen from a sample of 'the masses' rather than wade through the typical 'nerf this or that qq'.

Someone once pointed out that Blizzard is awful considerate to spend so much time on raiding content that impacts so few players in their total population. I see this as an effort to gain perspective for the more common player types.

 

• Phara

Unless Blizzard prevents people from posting on their low level alts, and start doing some moderation, that forum will probably be left to the level 3 gnome trolls, like pretty much all the other official forums.

 

Zifna

The first guilds selected appear to be:


Your Quest Log is Full - Ally guild on Greymane that apparently does not raid

Blackrock Legends - Horde guild on ?? that downs High King Maulgar

The Sleeper Cartel - Ally guild on Perenolde that downs Void Reaver.

Resurrection - Horde guild on Skywall that has 4 down in SSC and Void Reaver

Exanimus - Ally guild on Gurubashi that has Illidan down




Seems like they tried for a cross section?

 

xkmonkey

Being one the guilds chosen, I'll try to explain as much as I can. We were contacted about this program almost a year ago now, and it has only now been launched. Eyonix, up until this point, just hasn't had the time needed that he wanted to devote to this program. But it has finally started, and so far going pretty well.

The Guild Relations forums themselves are actually quite different, from what I've seen, compared to the General, Class and RnD forums. There seems to be a lot more respect between posters, and for the most part it doesn't get trolled very often. It has been a bit of a sanctuary for a lot of people, but I'm not sure how it's going to survive when the program gets linked in the General Forums. Eyonix seems really excited and dedicated so far, and I hope his presence, and moderating will be enough to control more of the major problems with the WoW forums.

Rayeth, we've already seen a huge influx in numbers to our site. It's left to be seen whether it increases our potential for good applicants, though I'm sure our total number of applicants will rise dramatically.

Buiden, those beta invites were slightly different than this program. We received that letter as well as the invites through this program last year during beta. That letter I believe was just to a variety of well progressed guilds.

Anyways, our guild is really excited about all of this and look forward that what will come of this program in the future.

 

Ghando

I still have no idea how the TBC beta invites went out, either on a guild or individual basis.

 

Grogzor

The main reason the guild relation forums were different was because nobody went there. Now if there will be actually useful information and real discourse on pressing issues that people will have to go there for, the trolls will follow and it will be brought back into the muck from which it was spawned.

But when it comes time for me to remove your wings, and you, you must try to fly...

Click Here to see what makes me tic(k).

What Are You Going to Roll for Warhammer Online?

 

goodr

I thought I had seen something similar a long time ago. I guess it fell to the wayside until now. At that point it sounded more like an opportunity for guilds to learn about running guilds from each other. Maybe I'm remembering something entirely different. Either way, seems like a good thing.

 

xkmonkey

Yes, this is the program that mentioned over a year ago when the Guild Relations forum was originally released. It had fallen to the wayside until just a few weeks ago when we were contacted again, asking if we were still interested. We actually used to be Forceful Entry back when we first got contacted.

 

Valen

Blizzard should realize that the moderation and discussion quality of their forums is bad enough to keep the more mature people away from them, no matter how many goodies they add for posting there. Hell, even the forum software is literally a disaster for a company of blizzard's caliber. Still can't do proper searching on forum after 3 years.

 

Caligula

This was exactly my thoughts when someone posted this on our guild site.

How is blizzard going to be able to effectively maintain this program when they can't even properly moderate their own forums?

 

Grogzor

The EU WoW forums are better though, any thread calling for a nerf to another class is met with immediate locking or deletion. When I stop seeing "@Huntard" threads in the Hunter Forums, then I will know Blizzard actually cares about their own forums.

But when it comes time for me to remove your wings, and you, you must try to fly...

Click Here to see what makes me tic(k).

What Are You Going to Roll for Warhammer Online?

 

Dollar

Proper moderating would go a long way in making the Blizzard forums usable. I read the EU forums if I am bored with Elitist Jerks, usually.

This Guild Relations program looks like a ploy to get more people reading the official forums.

 

Northerner

All I know is that I got seven invites last time around and I'm positive it was not because Tig had any tie-ins to that email address nor would likely remember me from EQ at this point anyhow. I was in the original closed beta but again, different email and different account even. The only (massive) stretch of imagination could have been a tie-in from noows/FoH which is on that same email addy but frankly, I've never communicated with Alex.

I'll assume random luck has some bearing to say the least.

 

◊ Vectivus

This program looks entirely valid. If you go and follow some of the documentation put together by the people from the guilds selected, they're actually doing a pretty respectable job of compiling information on how to start, run, be a part of, and overall maintain a guild (of whatever flavor - raiding, PvP, or otherwise).

I hope they stick with it. If it isn't something that is seen as a good return on investment, other guilds are unlikely to devote similar time to the forum(s) in question.

 

• Icetro

For what it's worth, the only guild from that list of which I have any knowledge (Blackrock Legends of my home server...Blackrock, quelle surprise!) is very highly regarded on my server. Not the most progressed, but good people who have done a lot to make the Blackrock forums less of a 24/7 pissing contest and Blackrock itself better in-game. I find it unlikely that Blizzard went around servers asking for dirt on guilds that were in the running, but I do think it's likely they checked forum post histories, which I'm sure showed the people in Blackrock Legends in a positive light.

That having been said, I haven't a clue why they did it the way they did it, nor do I know the criteria by which they selected this list.

 

• Vykromond

They selected the list by who did the best work on the Guild Relations forum in the last year, presumably. I remember when they initially announced this and the idea was that the most productive guilds in that forum would be the ones selected. I'm sure the guy who posted above in one of the guilds could tell you more.

 

Jehane

I am one of the regular contributors to the Guild Relations forum in the guise of my forum troll alt Gertrudis. I have been posting there for about a year now, and helping to moderate the forum through liberal use of the report feature. In my estimation, there are about thirty or forty regular contributors who also do this, of which perhaps fifteen to twenty are prolific posters.

As a result of our efforts, the signal-to-noise ratio has been much better in that particular forum than anywhere else. While it was apparent that Blizzard paid some attention to most of our report requests (most notably the removal of guild recruitment posts on an hourly basis), the forum suffered a bit from lack of stickies and a number of guides have either been lost or reposted elsewhere.

In order to keep information from being lost, a handful of regulars formed an auxilary website. Its guild on Skywall, roundtable, exists for the purpose of montly meetings at which guild leaders speak on topics of interest. Another guild, Guild Relations Watch, has formed for the purpose of policing the forums in a humorous manner. I suspect there will be a lot more work for it to do shortly.

Offensive posts are immediately reported or tagged with a 'please move' request. Offensive posters are ignored and repeatedly reported. Over attempts at trolling are read and answered literally, as sincerely meant. Ad hominem attacks or the usual dreck of class/faction/race war are not tolerated. There are a few useless threads that seem to get perpetuated ("Funny Guild Names Lolz") but we aim to keep most of the discussion substantive. While our unwritten rules aren't as strict as those here, we're certainly quick to enforce, as best we can, a modicum of attention to writing style and civility.

The Guild Relations forum has been very useful in sorting out the problems that are inherent in casual raiding guilds, because that is the experience of most of the posters. While a few people-- and most recently players from Exanimus-- have more experience, there are many questions we really can't answer. Generally speaking, if we get hit with this kind of technical question, I refer the poster to this forum or to something that is a bit more class-oriented, such as tankspot or shadowpriest.com.

A lot of questions have been asked recently about whether we can maintain the quality of our sandbox now that Blizzard is about to open the floodgates. I'm sure I speak for most of our posters when I say that the last couple of days have been exhausting.. but the flood is slowing to a trickle.

No, Blizzard did not select those who did the best work on those forums; you'd have to get one of the guilds chosen to comment on this. It would be more accurate to say they chose amongst those who've done the best work there. There are several regulars, such as myself, who post on forum alts for one reason or another, rather than advertise our guilds.

Yes, we do have trolls, but we insist that they use proper grammar and spelling, that they have enough training to parse a syllogism, and they must be quite skilled at making the worse case appear the better. And no, most of us don't yet understand the scope of the new program. We're just waiting and watching at this point.

 

Lokthra

It seems that it could potentially be a decent program, but its bound to not live up to its potential as some people mentioned. Many of the most involved guilds and individuals don't participate on the regular WoW forums because of the immaturity there. The best discussions that i have seen do not come from the WoW forums, they are here. Every thread on the R&D forums comes down to discussions on whether patchwerk hatefull strikes in 1v1 situations, or the ashbringer, whereas here there are actual discussions backed up by mathematically sounds data.

If Jehane's descriptions of what they do on the Guild Relation forums is accurate, i respect their work, but to me the meatiest discussions happen away from the WoW forums, so this program really isnt representing all aspects of guild relations.

 

Jehane

The discussion on Guild Relations tend to involve different subject matter than the discussions here. We focus on how guilds handle guild administration or interpersonal problems. While we occasionally answer a content-related question, anything complex generally gets referred elsewhere.

Different forums, different purposes.

 

Complex

Maybe, but surely the reason they're doing this (judging by the range of guilds currently on the programme) is to get feed-back from right across the community on the game in general rather than just issues relating to guild management. I really can't see anything productive coming from this in comparison to what goes on in these forums other than a less dense perspective from those in the bleeding edge of raiding.

 

Jehane

While that might be the point of the Guild Relations program, that's not the main focus of the Guild Relations Forum. Blizz didn't exactly consult OUR opinion, so we're just going to soldier on as we have been.