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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsOfficial class forums to be replaced with role forums [UPDATED x2]
by Alex Ziebart 
Oct 30th 2008 at 2:30PM
Want to hear something frightening? There will be no more class forums. Nethaera announced it a bit earlier on the official forums, and I'm still not sure what to think. They're breaking down the class forums and replacing them with role forums: Tanking, Healing, and Damage Dealing. For those players that have been afraid they're homogenizing classes a little too much, this really isn't helping.Personally, I think this is a horrible move. The official class forums were bad enough, and now they've thrust all of the classes together. Have you seen those really cruel, gross videos where they put two scary looking bugs together in a glass cage and let them kill each other, and they'll do it every single time just because it's in their nature to defend themselves? This is the WoW forum equivalent of it. This is going to be a disaster. The walls are going to be painted with blood.
On the other hand, this might turn out to be a good thing in that you're going to see a lot more community-made class forums such as ShadowPriest.com and Maintankadin cropping up. Places like that are generally far more useful in my experience, but come on. Does removing the class forums really sound like a good idea? It's just spreading the venom around instead of trying to find an antivenom. I could understand this if they added these three forums in addition to the class forums, but in place of them? Yeesh.
We're really interested in what all of you think about this as well, so we've made a handy dandy poll. Do you think they should have kept the role forums? Do you like the switch to role forums? Do you think they should have both?
EDIT: Blizzard poster Tyren later said they're not adverse to keeping the class forums, and may do so all depending on the feedback they receive. So we'll see what actually ends up happening, but I have a feeling class forums aren't going anywhere.
EDIT 2: Blizzard has taken only a few hours to decide to they will be keeping the class forums as well as the role forums. Crisis averted. Put down you dot shockers and step away slowly.
| Class forums! | |
|---|---|
| Role forums! | |
| They should have both! |
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 7)
S?rtogg Oct 30th 2008 3:07PM
Some topics are class related, others are role related.
If you keep both class and role forums, people will be posting in the wrong forum all the time and it won't be any clearer, unless heavy moderating is enforced. This is no option imo.
The question then becomes, who have the most in common? Is holy priest more related to resto shaman or to a shadow priest? Is a prot pala more related to a prot warrior or a retri pala?
What type of articles will be more interesting to read for that type of player?
I think role forums are the right choice. The only mistake Blizzard has made is to not split melee and ranged dps into two separate groups. dps forums will be overcrowded now.
Antonia Oct 30th 2008 3:08PM
Man I see a complete and utter civil war...
you know how many fights there are going to be when a holy paladin tells a resto shaman how to heal?
what about when the ret pally tries to blast a rogue for something?
people of different classes already troll other classes forums to grief them now blizzard is giving them an excuse by letting them say "i'm supposed to write here, its my role forum"
I can see it as 2 things: they're trying to organize the forums more because they are a mess and they are trying to slim the forums down. this would mean alot less lag on their website. I just hope Blizz hired more moderators for this circus their starting
my question is this.. where are all the class bug posts going to go? and i mean the real bugs, not just the QQ people do for this and that. cause thats the only thing those forums were ever totally good for (even though i understand blizzard never looked there unless they needed to lock a thread down)
also whats going to happen to all those useful class specific posts for talent builds and such?..
man this is dumber of them the more i think about it.
Antonia Oct 30th 2008 3:14PM
and by what i mean with "what will happen to all those class bug/useful posts" is that if they are kept and transfered to the role forum (which i know they wont) not every thing in them will be for the role that their set for. not to mention that if they did keep them we'd have to scroll past a million stickies to get to the new threads...
now that i think about it this should have been the way it was in vanilla wow when all the tier sets regulated a class to one role, like all the shaman gear being resto, same with druid gear and the like.. this is going completely against the idea that that classes themselves can do many different things. its almost retroactive
spec forums would be a ton better imo.
Trem Oct 30th 2008 3:15PM
"what about when the ret pally tries to blast a rogue for something?"
That would turn out brutal. Then again ANYTHING a ret pally would say in the DPS forums right now would turn into a "Flame the Pally" contest.
Daniel Oct 30th 2008 3:10PM
They should clearly have both, it's bad enough in some forums with all the people, spread out the topics more. So what if it's a lot of categories, there are a lot of people too.
Not to mention, where the hell are the hybrid forums huh? Now I have to click more links to see the news.
While they are at it, restrict the forums to players 18 and older. Make a day-care category for the little ones.
Ichthus Oct 30th 2008 3:11PM
Some of the best discussions on the Beta forums were when classes were tossed aside and people discussed the role first and class/spec second.
here is a thought Oct 30th 2008 3:16PM
oh to heck w/ it!
just let every class wear any armor, weild any weapon, cast any spell (under diff names of course) and just call it a day.
the whole notion of sacrifice for benefit has been lost anyway.
if you wear plate you should never be able to heal better than a cloth wearing healer. or do more casting dps than a cloth wearing caster. why? because you sacrificed that to wear plate.
game (paper or digital) classes traditionally were not meant to be 'balanced', they are specialist, able to do something better than anyone else by making sacrifices. you can rain fire from the sky but a couple whacks from an axe and you are toast, same story for raising the dead; etc. WoW seems to be migrating away from this idea. distinction was the reason we had to work together, to find group balance.
How long until we are all just shadowform stealth paladins casting totems left and right supported by our 3 pets?
miko Oct 30th 2008 3:18PM
you might find this hard to believe but this is, at least partly, to cut down on 'QQing', endless 'whine' posting and the like.
Ghostcrawler posted about it a while ago and put forward the view that the insular nature of the class forums created a culture where any post would simply be followed by loads of mostly useless posting backing up the OPs view or the opposite with next to no outside scrutiny of 'the problem' in comparison with other similar classes outside thier own and/or objectivity.
as such the forums were not serving their intended purpose which is to help make the game better though constructive debate and analysis the devs can read through.
i'm paraphrasing but if you search back through a blue tracking site you might be able to find GCs words but that was about the jist of it.
personally i see no problem with it at all.
Dunhear Oct 30th 2008 3:19PM
Awesome! This is the forum equivalent of the zombie event!
You'll all be forced to deal with the worst the forum has to offer, the trolls and douchebags will run wild making the forums completely useless and the QQ will flow like wine and that will just prompt people to respond with "STFU, STOP QQING WHINER!" and "LAWLZ, LRN2POST IMO!"
Only this event will never end...
Best Forums World Event EVAR!
sharkeater Oct 30th 2008 3:20PM
oh yeah, walls will be painted with blood. less true concerns will be heard.
The idea of separating the pvp aka afk battleground people from the raiders would be welcome, but they wont do that.....
Hmm economic hard times? blizz downsizing? wtf they have more money than god.
Whoever the lazy hump that thinks this is a good idea will be jobless a month after it goes live. lmfao!!
I hardly look at the blizz forums, and now i simply won't.
Kakistocracy Oct 30th 2008 3:20PM
But it seems to further dehumanize the characters, no longer even a class, now just a role. I have long though it was a bit rude when people in groups say "The tank has to do X in situation Y" Rather that using some variation of an abbreviation of the name, this action on blizzard's part seems to validate such thinking.
Xerous Oct 30th 2008 6:50PM
They are not removing your class they are giving you tools to break the set idea in your head that only your class matters and only your own class members understand how to do your job.
This is not middle school we all don't have to be a part of a tiny clique. This will encourage communication between groups of poeople with similar interests over-all.
Kakistocracy Oct 30th 2008 8:19PM
Ah.... Sorry, didn't realize that if I was even slightly vague someone would be so oblivious as to make absurd assumptions and take it upon themselves to explain the even more obvious.
Yes, of course they are not removing the classes, but they clearly are reinforcing their idea that homogeneity is king.
My point is, enough has already been done to allow people to assume every one can be grouped into overarching categories, why not allow some distinction?
My example of parties following blizz's lead in overlooking individuality was not meant as a serious backing to tie warrant to the grounds, again, sorry if I confused you.
Azhural Oct 30th 2008 3:20PM
Goodbye endless theorycrafting on the rogues forum. Those threads are going to sink to the bottom with every class spamming the forum.
SINisterWyvern Oct 30th 2008 3:21PM
Worst idea ever. Which forum do hybrids have to look in if they're not sticking with 1 spec?
Now it will just be even harder to find useful information.
MechChef Oct 30th 2008 3:46PM
On the rare occasions that I do visit the WoW forums, there's so little value in the class forums anyway. "You're a terrible [insert class] with a terrible spec and terrible gear blah blah blah." This way, I think classes will hate each other more, and hate similar classes less. So I predict the amount of flaming will continue at at least equal levels. But the focus will be less inwardly directed.
Arcaria Oct 31st 2008 3:09PM
It doesn't matter. Everyone knows that Elitist Jerks have better class forums anyway. WoW forums are ridiculous and serious players don't go there for information anyway.
Saryel Oct 30th 2008 3:34PM
I don't know why they wouldn't just split up the class forums into subsections. Like splitting up the paladin forum into tanking, healing and dps sub-forums. It's still class specific but each one is only discussing one aspect of the class.
Tiforix Oct 30th 2008 3:35PM
Stupid, dumb, inane idea.
Do people who don't play Shamans, for example, really need to sort through posts about the totem quests, or if they don't play Druids, do they care about the Swift Flight Form quest? There is so much that's unique to every class, and the class forums are the place to discuss that.
gundamxzero Oct 30th 2008 3:51PM
TBH wowhead/allakhazam would be a much better source of info, and to discuss it.