Sociop posted: Perhaps, as much as I hate unions, this game being as large as it is needs a players union then the players could carry a lot of weight, the players could quite literally become the official Blizzard CEO's, it would be our way or no way.
While I am pretty sure you're joking, this argument is more to the heart of the matter than any other attempt at stating it has been thus far.
This isn't our game, it's Blizzards. We vote with our dollars, as such, we represent a collective bargaining unit with no legal, but certainly a very REAL recourse.
If you/we don't like what's going on, we "cast our union vote" by cancelling our subscription. That's where our "power" begins and ends, period.
The interesting thing about that is that without legal recourse, the players, as a collective bargaining unit face the very real implications of their decisions in a way that legally protected labor unions don't. If we decide to protest, the company is not obligated to compensate us and we have to live with our decision on our own. Blizzard will or won't listen to the players based on how much it impacts their bottom line.
He's not joking. Eve has a players 'union' of sorts.. a correspondence group that is voted in by the subscriber base every year. They have a very strong hand in the way the game progresses, changes, and what not. It's proved a huge success in EvE which is one of the few MMO's out there that I know of that has had one of the most consistent increases in population.
I was attempting to make my remarks reasonable above in an attempt to be civilized about the discussion and to politely point out what I thought were the down sides of that kind of thing, but really, I'd see such a development as that, in a game with 12 million subscribers as a total and complete joke that would spell the end of the game faster than Blizzard cloning Ghostcrawler 100 times and using those clones to be the entirety of their dev. staff.
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If ignorance were painful, half the posters here would be on morphine drips.
Everyone playing WoW knows everything about playing two classes: 1) their own and 2) Hunters
Mark Jacobs attempted to appease those on here. I remember quite vividly how a certain poster lead this literal campaign to nerf a class. After Mythic caved, he stated it was time to move onto and nerf the next class.
I kid you not, these were his exact words.
At that point, most of us realized the death spiral incoming and started to leave. Our experience in DAoC taught us that much.
Ironically, I watched that above poster wonder in awe as to why the game died.
Granted, it wasn't the only reason Warhammer Online failed. But, when the selective voice of nerf herders started to complain from Day One and Mythic listened . . . you knew the score.
And let's be real. Most threads on any board, to include this one, are complaints, gripes, or whines.
Positive threads, rare as they are, disappear quick with little response.
Cawlin posted: This isn't our game, it's Blizzards. We vote with our dollars, as such, we represent a collective bargaining unit with no legal, but certainly a very REAL recourse.
If you/we don't like what's going on, we "cast our union vote" by cancelling our subscription. That's where our "power" begins and ends, period.
The interesting thing about that is that without legal recourse, the players, as a collective bargaining unit face the very real implications of their decisions in a way that legally protected labor unions don't. If we decide to protest, the company is not obligated to compensate us and we have to live with our decision on our own. Blizzard will or won't listen to the players based on how much it impacts their bottom line.
This. The players are 100% responsible for the success of WoW, end of story. We can all say whatever we want about whoever we want but at the end of the day, as long as we (using this term generically as I am sure a few will chime in swearing they quit long ago) keep paying, the message Blizz is receiving is that all is well.
The only issue that I can recall where players did not like an issue, and actually voted with their wallets, was with RealID.
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Guttersludge
People just can't handle the truth.
NeMeFieD said:"ea I Ucmed for 12 days straight.."
njwCSUS posted:I'm homosexual, so really, its ongoing sexual attraction to my father, not my mother.
Festus_Stundagin posted: He's not joking. Eve has a players 'union' of sorts.. a correspondence group that is voted in by the subscriber base every year. They have a very strong hand in the way the game progresses, changes, and what not. It's proved a huge success in EvE which is one of the few MMO's out there that I know of that has had one of the most consistent increases in population.
I wish I could get on that, a free trip to Iceland for a week's holiday would be sweet.
However I think the most that can be said for the results of that group is that it is surprising to find out what the Devs DON'T know sometimes (ie, in EVE's case, the effect of large fleet battle lag on module activation). This, of course, is no surprise to readers of the three role boards in WoW as Ghostcrawler usually has to be dragged kicking and screaming to facts a huge number of the playerbase has been aware of for months.
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Thanks, but it's been fun
Five more minutes then I'm done!
I've been saying that to myself since
...yesterday.
- from "Has anybody seen my corpse". Man Everquest rocked back in the day...
kyrv Title: Lord Logicus Posts: 263 Registered: 2002-1-31 13:09:58
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:02amSubject:
Ghostcrawler
Sociop posted:
The_Korrigan posted:
Sociop posted: Not if the percentage of complainers is a direct correlation of the percentage of the playing population because that would me the overwhelming majority are not happy with the game.
Really? Gamers are among the biggest whiners of the planet, the worst category being PvPers. Do you really think a company should worry because gamers whine on their forums, as long as they pay a subscription?
The only thing that talks is money. To pass a strong message, a large amount of people would have to cancel their account. Then yes, the devs will notice. But some whining on their forum? I bet they make a list of the most pathetic ones to laugh at them during their meetings.
Perhaps, as much as I hate unions, this game being as large as it is needs a players union then the players could carry a lot of weight, the players could quite literally become the official Blizzard CEO's, it would be our way or no way.
If the players agreed on squat, you could have something there. Well, no, you still wouldn't.
I would suggest, instead of asking WoW to change itself that dramatically, not talking minor improvements here, that players are better off playing one of the dozens and dozens of other games out there.
Gaming companies have to be really careful listening to the players. Especially listening to the vocal whiny minority. I'm not talking about FFXIV ignoring players telling them the UI was awful (in case they couldn't figure that out on their own), I'm talking about core design.
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CO, LOTRO, RoM, PWI, CoH
Dragon Age
kyrv Title: Lord Logicus Posts: 263 Registered: 2002-1-31 13:09:58
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:02amSubject:
Ghostcrawler
Ardenwolfe posted: And it's been tried.
Mark Jacobs attempted to appease those on here. I remember quite vividly how a certain poster lead this literal campaign to nerf a class. After Mythic caved, he stated it was time to move onto and nerf the next class.
I kid you not, these were his exact words.
At that point, most of us realized the death spiral incoming and started to leave. Our experience in DAoC taught us that much.
Ironically, I watched that above poster wonder in awe as to why the game died.
Granted, it wasn't the only reason Warhammer Online failed. But, when the selective voice of nerf herders started to complain from Day One and Mythic listened . . . you knew the score.
And let's be real. Most threads on any board, to include this one, are complaints, gripes, or whines.
Positive threads, rare as they are, disappear quick with little response.
That's just the nature of forums.
I remember when DAoC came out they said they were not going to cave to the whiny vocal minority, and how wonderful that sounded (this coming from EQ.). One of the items they weren't going to cave on was to give in to the min/maxers, they wanted casters to spec in TWO lines 2/3 of the way. Then they quickly caved, which set the precedent.
ea I Ucmed for 12 days straight.."