Do the community managers actually manage the community and tell the big man upstairs that the community is pissed or do they just maximize a browser with the forums on it every thirty minutes and delete/ban half the forum? More importantly, do they notice the same people they have banned so many times its not even funny anymore, keep coming back?

Did Karune get hit by a bus? Has Xorbediah been destroyed by Kotick Private Security? Was Cavez put in a closet and told he can't come out until starcraft 2 ships?

We're painfully aware.

I won't make any excuses as to why forum communication took a dive, but it seems that we're starting to get our heads above water again and hopefully we can get our activity in all of our forums back up (SC2 isn't the only place that has suffered). I don't know. Maybe that's being too optimistic.

Personally I've really been waiting to get our information and responses solidified for the big key issues. There's almost no point in posting unless we can hit the main concerns. It's in the works. Soon. And all that.

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Q u o t e:
cheeto lightsaber

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Tell me more.

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Q u o t e:
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=25171934229&sid=3000

This is a valid question, I've seen this pop up on TL and other sites. Not answering equals admitting Activision is making all the decisions for you.

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Haha, is that what it means? Logical.

Yeah, that's on our list of things we need to provide more info on.

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Q u o t e:
HAI BASHIOK~

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BUT YOU SAID!

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Q u o t e:


You know, instead of making a list of when and how to "deal with an information problem", you could answer the damn question.

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Think globally!

Heh. Well, we have to make sure what we're saying is what we want to say, there's enough misinformation out there that guessing what the answer is probably isn't a good idea. Also, we do have to create documents and make sure they're approved by the designers/producers in charge, and then sent out for localization or at least so we're prepared with the proper info in all languages.

Gone are the days of posting ad-hoc. They will be missed.

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Q u o t e:


"Can I say this?" "No"

"But this?" "No"

"What about this?" "No.."

"But.." "Just shut yer mouth and wait for your orders!"

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What? I've been at Blizzard 6.5 years. I've been a community manager... 4, or so? Things work now like they've worked since World of Warcraft got big and we became a large global company. We have to coordinate communication. It's how it's worked for many years. :)

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Q u o t e:
You sort of took a nosedive to escape that other thread when I bothered to cite sources and quotations on my 'baseless comments'. I am disappoint son.

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Sorry, I legitimately didn't see it. Link?

Oh do you mean the old thread in D3? I can go check. I think I was mostly nosediving because going back and forth on your exaggerations really didn't do anybody any good, and it ultimately shouldn't have been in the Diablo III forum.

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Q u o t e:
Bashiok why was the main reason for no chat due to spam?

Wouldn't the whole "One account one cd key" eliminate the possibility of people spamming? simply permaban and force them to buy a new one if they want to spam.

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Who is banning them, and what is generating their pay to patrol/moderate millions of users?

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Q u o t e:
You could make it automated, I recall wc3 cd keys getting muted for countlessly flooding channels.

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That's one specific type of channel abuse that could maybe be automated for a second until someone figures out the requirements to avoid it, and then continues to do it anyway.

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Q u o t e:
The idea that viewing occasional spam is so horrifying that all forms of chat channels (including private channels which were the ones players actually used and were never spammed) needed to be removed insults my intelligence and service to this country.

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We'll have private chat channels, they just aren't making it in for the release date.

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Q u o t e:
In fact, the only thing I can think of that is more offensive is the idea that Blizzard cannot afford to pay someone $10 an hour to moderate the 10-15 public chat channels that Battle.net 2.0 would theoretically have.

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So 10-15 channels would serve the millions that will inevitably purchase the game? Those are some busy channels. And one person would be able to moderate all those people by their lonesome?

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Q u o t e:
I've worked in consumer product development, and it's been obvious from the beginning that the reason for not implementing chat channels is avoiding the (substantial) support cost associated with enforcing guidelines on their use.

Yes, WC3 and SC1 had chat channels, and yes, both were very popular games. However, World of Warcraft has both grown Blizzard's audience substantially, and has also set a particular standard of support that's been based on having a continuous revenue stream from the game.

It's quite likely that the choice with respect to chat channels came out of a realization that providing the level of support people expect today to deal with rule-breakers would require Blizzard to charge a monthly fee, and that the way it fell out was that not having chat channels was seen as preferable to charging a monthly fee to play the game, particularly since Blizzard's competitors in the RTS market do not charge such fees. Also, it's quite possible that Blizzard's leadership are unhappy, in retrospect, with the level of support they were able to provide WC3 and earlier games, given their WoW experience.

Now, in the long run it may be that Blizzard encounters such pushback on the chat channel issue that they basically have to eat the cost of that support. If this happens, I'm not entirely sure that the long-term result is what the community would want. That long-term result might be that the NEXT game simply includes a fee to play to ensure that the game remains profitable to support.

Blizzard is a very successful company, but they're already plowing the bulk of their profits back into new development and rapid growth. Their resources are not unlimited, and saying "Try to tell us you can't afford this!" doesn't make them so.

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Enlightened, thanks!

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Q u o t e:

Bashiok, Teamliquid moderates thousands of posters....for free.

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Really? really.

These are the quotes that make me want to go lay down.

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Q u o t e:
Teamliquid can get away with it because they're supporting the community with no profit incentive, so people volunteer to help out. If Blizzard tried that, here's how the conversation would go:

Them: "Hey, would you like to be a chat moderator, responsible for strictly adhering to our set of requirements for banning people from chat channels, with no flexibility to make your own decisions about what's acceptable?"

Me: "How much does it pay?"

Them: "How about $0/hr, with time and a half for overtime?"

Me: "No."

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This.