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Q u o t e:
I do want to point out that while many priest replied graciously with something like "Even if I didn't like all of the answers, thanks for stopping by," you also get the following kind of responses, which are the kinds of things that make blues reluctant to respond. Stop doing that and you will probably see more questions answered over time.

1) I can't believe you answered these dumb questions.

2) You guys clearly have no idea how our class works.

3) I can't believe they find X acceptable and aren't buffing us.

4) Well, you finally answered, but that doesn't erase the massive debt you owe us.

As to the Q&As, we tried to answer broad topics rather than select say 20 questions out of the hundreds we got, but if the community is happier with narrower, more specific questions, maybe that's the direction we'll take future Q&As. It just may mean none of the specific things you're interested in get addressed.

[Not tracked]

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Ghostcrawler is now my favorite blue :D <3!!!!!!

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Q u o t e:
As to the Q&As, we tried to answer broad topics rather than select say 20 questions out of the hundreds we got, but if the community is happier with narrower, more specific questions, maybe that's the direction we'll take future Q&As. It just may mean none of the specific things you're interested in get addressed.

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I'll leave it up to you to determine if more narrow Q&A's are better, but I think it's doable with a short (maybe paragraph) about each certain role a class can do. Like, a paragraph explaining a particular class's role as DPS, Tanking, Healing. If a class is a pure, make it a little longer, then get into specifics. If it's a hybrid, maybe get a little in-depth, then jump into specifics.

We appreciate the idea of adding philosophy to the Q&A's, but realistically (and you could expect this) all we want to hear is what's going to happen to our class.

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Q u o t e:
And GC what you did made many people happy, and i think now the shadow priest community will be able to hold over until the actual Q&A

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From what I heard in-game, from my buddies, and from forum posters, the Shadow Priest Q&A as well as the "real" Mage Q&A got very positive responses. The official Mage Q&A made WoW players worldwide want to buy crabs and cook them live.

GC... You're allowed to sit at the cool kids' table again.

As for the specific questions, it's understandable that you can't answer every single specific question, but perhaps a nice balance between the more broad questions and the specific ones could be maintained.

From what I've seen there are three kinds of questions that crop up. There are directional questions like "Why are unique buffs being spread out" and "What role does Replenishment hold in healer mana regen". There are questions about general problems, like "Why do pets have such odd scaling problems" and "Is my class/spec's DPS too low?". Then there are specific questions like "Why doesn't Armor Pen benefit Skill X on Class 1 to the same degree as it benefits skill Y on Class 2".

We'd love for you to answer the specific questions, but it's unreasonable to expect you to do so. The answers to direction or vision based questions are interesting, but don't really tell us anything specific, and many of us want direct answers. I would personally be happier if you focused on more on letting us know about what you do and do not see as problem areas, focusing on more specific questions that pertain to those discussions.

Basically, I'd kinda like the communication between the customer base and the developers to be bit more structured, but to also have better flow. It kinda feels like we've got a huge kindergarten class all trying to get teachers attention at the same time, and teacher is getting tired of being shouted at.

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Q u o t e:
I do want to point out that while many priest replied graciously with something like "Even if I didn't like all of the answers, thanks for stopping by," you also get the following kind of responses, which are the kinds of things that make blues reluctant to respond. Stop doing that and you will probably see more questions answered over time.

1) I can't believe you answered these dumb questions.

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At least you answered the questions that they actually asked.

I felt that quick SPriest Q&A was excellent to be honest.

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Q u o t e:
From my experience, people would appreciate much narrower and specific questions and responses better. If it's too broad (aka the Mage Q&A) it feels like nothing was answered.

Specific questions and answers feel like they have more substance to me and are much more clear-cut. People don't like wishy-washy answers that can be interpreted many ways, although I understand you can't speak on behalf of all Blizzard and say "We ARE going to do X" all the time. The community would appreciate it if you could try your best to answer specific questions as clearly as possible and give us insight as to your feelings on the matter or any ideas you devs are allowed to share with us. It also really helps to know WHY you don't do certain things, like making Fade remove movement impairing effects and such. It helps aim future forum discussion in the appropriate direction instead of keeping the community hanging onto hopeless dreams of specific buffs or changes that may never come to be.

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I think some of the point he was trying to get at....people may not get what their specific topic was answered. The Mage questions answered later were very indepth, as were the Shadow Priest answers, but the length of the Shadow Priest reply was practically the same as the other Q&As. To do that for the Q&A and include an equally long list for Holy, and Disc would be excessively time consuming. And then try getting to Druids where you have Balance, Feral tank, Feral DPS, and Restoration.

The replies are nice, and they are good to get/see, but they should be taken for what they are - a nicety.

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Q u o t e:

As to the Q&As, we tried to answer broad topics rather than select say 20 questions out of the hundreds we got, but if the community is happier with narrower, more specific questions, maybe that's the direction we'll take future Q&As. It just may mean none of the specific things you're interested in get addressed.

[Not tracked]

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The issue with a lot of "broad topics" is there are a lot of things already known, the question is asked in different ways but the same answer is warranted and thus the community has heard it before. A large portion of the community don't follow every little update, but then again a lot do so when some of those broad topics are addressed it feels like a wasted question and the people who asked it in the first place would have found their answer through a little digging or asking around of their own.

For instance, just briefly looking at the DK Q&A series the first three questions had been already stated and answered at some point in time and a lot of us already knew your viewpoint thus it was a let down for players such as myself that would have preferred a more specific question.

It's hard to tell you to not cater for people that aren't going to spend time reading/asking around the community to get their answer but you're just going to be repeating yourself an awful lot if you keep doing so.

Usually when players pick a class to play you would hope they like it in general, it would be more common to find players irked about specific little things about the class rather than having some some major role confusion else they wouldn't be playing it.

So I guess what I'm saying is yes - specific answers to specific questions would probably work better than broad topics.

The informal SPriest Q&A was more interesting and honest than the previous official ones for other classes.

I hope that the warlock Q&A, whenever it get's here, will be similar or even more specific and blunt.

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Q u o t e:
I do want to point out that while many priest replied graciously with something like "Even if I didn't like all of the answers, thanks for stopping by," you also get the following kind of responses, which are the kinds of things that make blues reluctant to respond. Stop doing that and you will probably see more questions answered over time.

1) I can't believe you answered these dumb questions.

2) You guys clearly have no idea how our class works.

3) I can't believe they find X acceptable and aren't buffing us.

4) Well, you finally answered, but that doesn't erase the massive debt you owe us.

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You have a point, but I would think that individuals such as yourself that have done business on a community forum such as this would be very used to that type of posting behavior. I mean, this isn't a problem with the Blizzard forums or any one class, it's an "internet attitude" problem that goes beyond what we discuss here.

There are always those whom delight in those responses, and while I agree that they shouldn't *necessarily* be ignored, there should be some sort of Gnomish Goggles you guys own that can pick out the good suggestions and, at the same time, recognize a person that is just posting because they like to see internet carnage unfold.

Maybe it seems easy to me because I have been on forums for years (tough skin, etc), but I cannot imagine community managers taking these types of flagrant posts to heart.

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Q u o t e:


I am confident we will never receive proper buffs

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When are the buffs going to be proper? When you stand more than a 50% chance of killing all melee? Give me a break. There are things that your class/spec sucks at. Its a fact. There are also comps that you have the advantage in.

Some people, when QQing about shadow PvP often seem to overlook the fact that we can still cast all of our discipline spells...seriously just be being able to dispell, MASS DISPELL, and have a rolling disease cure-over-time...you are gaining a ton of versatility in arena. You can also throw shields out on yourself AND partners.

There are people who manage to get their spriest arena teams up in the high ratings. If someone can do it, you can do it too. Once you realize that your priest is a preist and not a mage, maybe you can make it work too.

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Q u o t e:
I do want to point out that while many priest replied graciously with something like "Even if I didn't like all of the answers, thanks for stopping by," you also get the following kind of responses, which are the kinds of things that make blues reluctant to respond. Stop doing that and you will probably see more questions answered over time.

1) I can't believe you answered these dumb questions.

2) You guys clearly have no idea how our class works.

3) I can't believe they find X acceptable and aren't buffing us.

4) Well, you finally answered, but that doesn't erase the massive debt you owe us.

As to the Q&As, we tried to answer broad topics rather than select say 20 questions out of the hundreds we got, but if the community is happier with narrower, more specific questions, maybe that's the direction we'll take future Q&As. It just may mean none of the specific things you're interested in get addressed.

[Not tracked]

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I like the way this Q&A went very much. The Mage one might not have been as poor as it was if the Paladin change announcement hadn't have come right beforehand, and had more pertinent information.

You do bring up a good point about this style likely meaning some concerns will not be addressed, and how perhaps this one person's questions were answered but many others weren't.

I'd like to suggest taking a broad set of question types as a template to answer, and just filling in questions to that template from the thread of questions in the class forums.

For example:

**General pick your class info that has changed since the booklet and people should know the new future of the class**

Intro: We want this class to fill blank role and/or blank role. It will use *vague* blank tools to do so. (Melee/ranged whatever)

Style: We want the core pvp mechanics to feel like blank (Choice between apply dots and survive, or be slippery and heavy nuke if given opportunity, etc etc). We want PvE damage rotation to be blank, which we feel is unique and interactive. If applicable, tank style or healing style.

**Insert questions from community feedback here**

Specific talent weaknesses: We hear complaints of blank and blank being too weak. These are or aren't being used effectively. If you're trying to do blank with this spell, you're doing it wrong, we intend for you to use blank to accomplish that. (E.G. We currently aren't supporting frost PvE raiding. Sorry, we're working to get there eventually, but right now we can't hit a balance for pvp we can be comfortable with as we're still looking into changing the way snares, interrupts, and dispellable buffs are turning out. Please PvE with your specs that are working for now, and we'll try to keep at least one viable spec for each role while we try to find the balance we're looking for in terms of casters, healers, and melee. We were getting there but some of the new spells added in this expansion have changed the field a bit more than we expected, so we're looking at the long term to find a balance we'll be able to keep as new abilities added to the game in the future, so we don't have to change the numbers on 29 other pvp specs so they aren't all underpowered when spec 30 gains a new tool.)

Specific talents too strong or mandatory: (Same thing choose one or two as necessary).

Style weaknesses: We hear comments about your rotation/pvp weaknesses or counterclasses/numbers on meters being low. We agree blank is weak and plan to change it, or we feel blank is a weakness balanced by your ability to blank.

Defining class ability complaints by other classes, are changes looming?: Other classes have been complaining about blank. Confirm/deny potential changes looming to ability.

Quality of life questions: Blank is working but we don't think it's fun. (I.E. Warriors spamming heroic strike while tanking, macroing it into their other attacks). Can you find a way to accomplish the same task in a way that is more fun? We're looking at this. Maybe next patch/few patches from now we can fit this in. The important thing is we acknowledge it is there to be fixed.

Random questions that get asked all the time but don't fit other catagories or other random gossip.


I feel that sort of format is likely to get you questions of all types answered, rather than just whichever question people whine about the loudest. It'll get feedback of specific questions out of the class community threads, and give an honest overall picture of what general kinds of changes to expect to happen to people's toons so they don't feel like a roller coaster in the dark. It also keeps the specific questions down to 5-12, although of course the option is there for as many as are pertinent.

PS Thanks for keep getting on the horse. These talk to the community experiments are a roller coaster too.

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Q u o t e:
but if the community is happier with narrower, more specific questions, maybe that's the direction we'll take future Q&As. It just may mean none of the specific things you're interested in get addressed.

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no no no no no :)

I don't mind having a few specific issues addressed, but I really have enjoyed the broader design-oriented aspects of the Q&As so far.

I didn't post this in the other thread, but in case you do read this, GC:

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to provide us with some information. I'm sure it took more time than you'd have liked to spend on one (admittedly small) portion of the playerbase, and I hope I speak for the entire shadow community when I say it means a lot to us.

I look forward to seeing what (hopefully positive!) changes lie ahead in order to ensure we remain a viable choice for raid DPS.

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Q u o t e:

1) I can't believe you answered these dumb questions.

2) You guys clearly have no idea how our class works.

3) I can't believe they find X acceptable and aren't buffing us.

4) Well, you finally answered, but that doesn't erase the massive debt you owe us.

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My opinion is that you should take a heavy handed approach with these types of responses. It's a shame that every time you take the time to communicate with players like the Spriest Q and A that you end up having to spend a lot of time moderating afterwards. Please don't let the bad apples discourage you from communicating with us.

I wonder what GC's day job is...