Why are the official forums split up?

wysłany: 15 lat temu

First of all, I was not sure where to put this question. The general forum is meant for gameplay issues, as is this CS forum. I've decided to put it here anyway hoping that a blue poster will see it and correct its position if it's in the wrong forum. :)

Now, why I am opening this topic is this: why do we have separate forums for the US and the EU? Apart from the realm forums none of the forums here are location specific and quite often discussions that are interesting are being held on two fronts at once, for instance the topics about Tol Barad being imbalanced which you can find at http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1172921832 for EU and at http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1406727064 for US.

This problem has two facets. One: I can't reply on the US forums. If I see a nice post I'd like to comment on, I can't. I often get frustrated by not being able to participate in discussions, simply because they're on the wrong forums. And let's face it: the American forums are nicer to post on anyway, because every once in a while the developers have something to say too. I get a feeling the EU discussion platform is somewhat second rate and many interesting discussions here do not get the attention from Blizzard that they deserve.

That brings me to the second facet of this problem: it's extra work and extra communication for you, Blizzard. Many discussions are held both here and in the US forums. Stuff that you are not sure about here in Europe needs to be checked with American colleagues, which no doubt causes a lot of frustration and time.

So here I am, trying to figure out what the advantage is of having separate forums which are not usable for people on the other end of the world, even though the language used on both is the same. Merging the two forums into one would make your job easier, it would be less frustrating for us because we don't have to miss out on any discussions and also it would potentially increase the amount of blue responses because there are more Blizzard posters that are reading these topics.

Could anyone explain to me why this is the way it is now, as it seems counterproductive?

Wryxian

wysłany: 15 lat temu

04/01/2011 11:46 AMPosted by Byakurai
Also, Wryxian mentions this:
For the EU this setup allows us to ensure as close as possible equality of support for all languages: for example, we only post information in the EU English forum when we have it translated and ready to post in German, French, Spanish and Russian. We want to treat people as fairly and equally as we can.

This makes no sense, because either it is also posted in English on the US forums first, which means we get to read it on MMO-Champion, or the US has to wait for EU translations as well, just to be able to post it in the US. The former means the EU forums are almost obsolete as their news will always be a while behind what we already know from the US forums, the latter would mean that his entire point is invalid.

Indeed. Anyhow, we've posted enough replies on this kind of subject before. The setup of our forums across multiple regions might not feel right to some, but this is the way it is for now.