Blizzard Just Communicate Better With Us!!!

11/14/2014 09:45 AMPosted by Tyler

I get that this has been a rocky launch and the servers are stressed, you need to take them down for a few hours to resolve some issues. That's fine, we all would rather the game be running all weekend at 100%.

I just wish you would communicate with your fans/customers better than the robotic way you do now.

Instead of saying the servers will be up at 9am PST and then 15 minutes before that time you extended it another 2 hours. Why not just be frank with us and say "We have issues that are still unresolved, we are trying hard but we estimate this will take 6 or 8 hours, we are trying to fix this ASAP and will flip the switch as soon as we can."

Id much rather have them tell us that the maintenance is going to take around 6-8 hours and them get it done in 4.5 and flip the switch earlier than we all expected instead of.

"It will be ready at 9am PST"
8:45am "It will be ready at 11am"
10:45am :It will be ready at 2pm"
1:45pm "It will be ready at 4pm"

Just communicate better with us is all Im suggesting, that's all this is is a suggestion, there are Free to Play games out there who are leagues(lol) above you in customer relations.

Aside from the rant, GREAT JOB on the expansion so far, I am having a lot of fun when actually playing. Love the music and the story the most so far! Look forward to see the rest of Dreanor!

We can only communicate about what we know to be true. We're doing what we can to communicate as quickly as we can on key issues with everyone, but there's a lot being done on this end that can't be communicated or communicated right away. As you can see by the hotfixes (Rygarius has been posting), we've been sharing those out as quickly as possible. Both Zaryhm and Bashiok (among others on the team) spent time getting more information on things out last night as well. We have people from multiple departments working around the clock to monitor issues and work on fixes including the CS team here on the forums and on Twitter. This is not anything new for us though. It's what we strive to do with every patch and expansion.

It may seem robotic to you, but we want to also make sure that when we are communicating that we're as precise as possible in what we say and don't want to come across glib to those who may not understand how seriously we take resolving these issues with everyone.

We're working and trying to communicate that work to you as we can, but our primary focus is resolving issues as quickly as possible. We are right with you in that we both want you to play and enjoy Draenor and we also want to be able to play and enjoy Draenor. These things are not mutually exclusive. We're on the same side here.

11/14/2014 10:06 AMPosted by Drazmic

...

This is not anything new for us though. It's what we strive to do with every patch and expansion.

Striving for crashes and downtime! love it! No in all seriousness just glad I got 100 before this unexpected downtime.

As you well know, the "strive for" is not in reference to crashes and downtime. And... 100 already? Sheesh.

11/14/2014 10:10 AMPosted by Eprouvil

11/14/2014 10:02 AMPosted by Nethaera

we're as precise as possible

wrong.

You should always add two hours to your estimate. Then it looks better when you finish early.

We've had that occur many times. Rarely do people come to the forums to talk about it... because they're playing at that point. ;)

Unknown on the population numbers yet being bumped up. Believe it or not, sometimes we do end up waiting to the last minute in the hope we don't have to extend maintenance, but try to inform people right away.

Honest question here - are you given the discretion to answer questions by yourself (or anyone else on the team) or do you guys kind of post by committee to make sure the posting is crafted properly, without giving too much information out, or worse, implying information you absolutely aren't saying. Again, an honest, no sarcasm question into the mind of a CM and how you guys communicate.

It depends on the situation. Delicate high level information gets a lot of oversight to make sure it's correct and appropriate to go out. Other things can be more off the cuff and we're trusted to know where that line is.

I get that, and what you're saying makes sense. But surely you guys knew that the four hour maintenance was insufficient before the one-minute mark when the extension was announced. Is there a reason you can't let us know as soon as you yourselves know, that you're going to miss your predicted completion?

Sometimes things happen that are unexpected and cause additional issues. This particularly occurs when making changes to the realms. You can only predict so accurately when there is a large amount of variables that could skew that prediction.

I've been playing since release, and the number of times you have been ahead of your estimated downtime can be counted on one hand.

Then you haven't been really counting very carefully. I assure you, it's many more times than that, but I don't want to make this an argument. I just wanted to share some insights.

Believe it or not, I still have a pile of work on other things to do before the day is out for me and all I can do is reassure you that a great play experience for everyone is foremost in everyone's minds here.

The realms should be live now. We'll keep communicating as we can.

Just a short note.

A complaining customer is one who still cares enough to play your game.

If someone is complaining they still care.

In my experience the truly ticked off people just leave. They don't even bother to tell you how you failed, they just vote with their dollars and cancel your service.

If they're still talking. You still have an opportunity to reach out to them and make it right.

That's a precious gift.

This is a long standing belief of mine with some slight alterations. You're preaching to the choir my friend.

Feel free to spread the word that loading issues may be occurring due to the amount of people attempting to log in right now. If you are having issues, you may want to give it a couple of minutes and try again to see if it helps.

11/14/2014 11:16 AMPosted by Beini

11/14/2014 11:14 AMPosted by Nethaera

Feel free to spread the word that loading issues may be occurring due to the amount of people attempting to log in right now. If you are having issues, you may want to give it a couple of minutes and try again to see if it helps.

Hey Neth any word on Mal'Ganis, it's still MIA.

It's being looked into.

11/14/2014 11:21 AMPosted by Gummy

Are the population restrictions expected to be lifted soon? Not interested in sitting in queue.

Unknown yet.

Just a note that we still have people working on the issues people have been reporting. We will communicate more hopefully when we have something more to report than "we're working on it".

Unknown yet because they are trying to decide or unknown because nobody has brought it up?

Unknown because we need to ensure stability before we start putting more pressure on everything.

Haha, they called us all stupid, "but there's a lot being done on this end that can't be communicated or communicated right away"

None of what I said has anything to do with your intellect or inability to understand.