Ask the Devs scrapped, new Q&A coming soon
by Mathew McCurley 
Jun 16th 2011 at 5:00PM
Criticism for Ask the Devs was occasionally harsh. Players submitted questions and then voted on which questions would be answered by the developers. Blizzard acknowledged that this system did not work as they had intended and will most likely be changing the format to meet the needs of the question and answer format.
Bashiok took to the forums to discuss why Ask the Devs hadn't panned out for Blizzard the way they would have liked. Much like many of the arguments against the format, Bashiok agreed that the popularity-based scheduled Q&A system was not something that provided the developers with the best questions, nor the best questions that had salient answers. In this tricky business of game design, sometimes asking the right question is more important then the answer you get. Bashiok assures the community that something new is in the works and up his sleeves, and I eagerly await the new and improved Q&A format.
Hit the jump for Bashiok's full post on the Ask the Devs feature.
Bashiok
I'm not going to bother getting into the specifics of what was answered or why or any fansite articles bashing the process; it's been covered many times before.
But, at the core, I think we agree it's not working. While we could (and do) lament over the reasons why a scheduled Q&A based on question popularity doesn't sit well with people, the bottom line is it can't go on as it is.
We don't expect people will ever be completely happy with any Q&A. Regardless of how they're conducted we'll never get to every question, so there are always going to be complaints that we didn't answer the right ones. But Ask the Devs is different. While there are certainly arguments that answers didn't say the right things, or didn't give a firm answer on how a problem would be resolved, the process just doesn't work because of the format.
We've spent a lot of time discussing why it doesn't work, and while that's interesting to us, the bottom line is that once we've finished the role Q&A's with healers, we will be ending the Ask the Dev series.
Our goal with Ask the Devs was always to increase interaction with the developers, to provide a direct conduit to their thoughts and process. We're in the planning stages for a new Q&A process that will replace Ask the Devs, and while we're absolutely certain people will continue to be upset we didn't answer every question, we think it will overall be a far more successful approach.
But, at the core, I think we agree it's not working. While we could (and do) lament over the reasons why a scheduled Q&A based on question popularity doesn't sit well with people, the bottom line is it can't go on as it is.
We don't expect people will ever be completely happy with any Q&A. Regardless of how they're conducted we'll never get to every question, so there are always going to be complaints that we didn't answer the right ones. But Ask the Devs is different. While there are certainly arguments that answers didn't say the right things, or didn't give a firm answer on how a problem would be resolved, the process just doesn't work because of the format.
We've spent a lot of time discussing why it doesn't work, and while that's interesting to us, the bottom line is that once we've finished the role Q&A's with healers, we will be ending the Ask the Dev series.
Our goal with Ask the Devs was always to increase interaction with the developers, to provide a direct conduit to their thoughts and process. We're in the planning stages for a new Q&A process that will replace Ask the Devs, and while we're absolutely certain people will continue to be upset we didn't answer every question, we think it will overall be a far more successful approach.
Filed under: Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Nyold Jun 16th 2011 5:10PM
I'm actually surprised that they didn't consider it "working."
I actually enjoyed reading all ask the devs series. Do fellow WowInsider commenters have any insights as to what they might have in mind when the said "We've spent a lot of time discussing why it doesn't work" ?
Scunosi Jun 16th 2011 5:17PM
Well one of the constant problems people will always disagree on is which questions got answered. With the Tank one, a lot of people felt some of the questions (like the one about Taunt missing...) shouldn't have been answered in the first place and were a "waste" of a question, but thanks to popular vote they got chosen, or at least got more attention than others.
Then there's the issue of people asking about things Blizzard just isn't ready to talk about yet (usually with features people are wanting) so Blizz gives them some dodgy answer and people complain about it. They don't want to get people's hopes up too soon and ditch out later (Dance Studio? :P) but they also want to share some of the cool stuff they're doing, which puts them in a difficult position where people are always wanting more.
Add to that the fact that a lot of people were just disappointed with the overall tone of them sessions (with some really valid, important questions being blown off and other lesser ones getting too much attention) and in the end everyone loses 'cuz no one's satisfied. I'll admit I thought the idea was kind of cool, but as a Bear tank after reading the last one I was pretty peeved about some of their responses. In a way, they were just creating more problems by saying anything than if they'd just kept their mouth shut and let the players speculate instead of affirming their fears that Bears aren't really cared for as much as other tanks. :P
KPB Jun 16th 2011 6:23PM
I'm not surprised. The tank one especially seemed pretty pointless and I didn't feel like I really learned anything interested in new from it. Just non answers and talking in circles. Part of the problem is the questions that were submitted. Several of them read like "every question or thought I've ever had about bear tanking thrown together." There were enough questions in there for a Q&A by it self and not surprisingly it got a ton of votes from people who were interested in any of the questions included.
mitch_b_666 Jun 16th 2011 6:40PM
if you're a regular to The Queue, you'll be used to the idea of wasted questions *cough*beer*cough*
Angus Jun 16th 2011 6:47PM
Let me break a question down from the Ask the devs tank Q & A:
Have you considered normalizing initial Rage for feral druid tanks? For example, when a warrior uses Charge, it generates 15 points of Rage, which lets them use another aggro generating ability quickly, something that Feral druids tend to be a bit short on.
Why in Cataclysm was the bear bonus health pool was reduced, as well? Their survivability always depended on the amount of health since they don't have parry or shield block. Do you have any plans to improve bear tanking in the future?
At the moment, it's considered to be the weakest tank. Have you considered giving druid tanks an additional tool to pull casters at range? It's the only tank class that doesn't have a talent or spell to help in those situations.
Allison touched on how they "answered this"
Bears are getting a significant mitigation buff in 4.2 and we're retuning their damage such that it's a little easier to hold aggro at low gear levels, and a little harder at higher gear levels. While we definitely don't expect the community to ever agree on anything, we've seen little evidence of a widespread concurrence that druids are "the weakest tank." There are plenty of druid tanks out there, handling everything from Grim Batol to Sinestra. Tank balance overall is in a really good place. Players may focus on potential problems that could arise in the future but we also have ample time to address those problems should they occur. Gone are the days when we would just release a class into the wild and refuse to touch it again until the next expansion.
Note if you will that ENTIRE FIRST SECTION WAS IGNORED. Not answered yes/no. IGNORED.
Note the second section was pretty much ignored as well.
They focused on 1 sentence and that's all they addressed. They didn't even address it well.
They then ignore the last point.
So, person asks why bears spend rage to do things warriors get rage from. (This used to be because warriors couldn't charge in combat. That died in Wrath, but bears are still paying rage to do it.)
They ask about a range pull, and absolutely no mention is made in the "answer." The disparity between block and mastery is sort of talked about, but whoop dee doo, the rest of the items were summarily blown off.
This is why people hate the format. I could go into just about every Q&A and show how they did this. Heck, the profession one might as well been called "Archeology Q&A, yes we know it sucks." The least one can do in a Q&A is actually answer the damn questions.
I haven't been on the new forums in a while. Just plain no longer care. They got rid of the community in the forum communities a while ago. I don't know how they can get people to come back when the forums are basically a hole that goes no where. Until they stop trying to fix classes/specs in dumb ways and actually listen to the community the first time instead of the 15th, they will continue to lose some of the best people giving feedback.
Coldbear Jun 16th 2011 7:49PM
I'm surprised that they considered it "broken" enough to scrap it and try something else.
To continue the example of the Bear tanking question/answer that pissed off the above poster - the question wasn't just one question - it was a mess of a bunch of different issues all hodge-podged into one single blob of a paragraph or two.
The dev who saw that thought "Ok, let's talk about Bear tanking" and off he went.
Sure that's a problem, maybe he just should've edited out the stuff he couldn't or didn't want to, or didn't have time to talk about - but it's also an issue of people upvoting huge sets of stuff that they want covered.
I thought it was a decent system. But I suppose blog posts from the devs is just fine, too. That way there's no teeth-gnashing about which questions will get answered - the devs just write about what they can/want to write about and that's that.
Xaklo Jun 16th 2011 5:16PM
"or any fansite articles bashing the process"
>:D
Allison Robert Jun 16th 2011 5:57PM
I am become Death, Destroyer of Developer Q&As.
Well, not really. Scuttlebutt is that they were planning on nixing it anyway, so the odds of the Shifting column having much influence over the matter aren't high.
DragonFireKai Jun 16th 2011 8:21PM
It was a flawed format from the get go. The tanking Q&A just highlighted the flaws more so than any of the previous ones. More people care more passionately about Tanking than they do about say, Archeology. This announcement is a good idea, because it's going to cut off most of the complaints about the DPS and Healing answers, both of which have larger player bases than Tanking does, before the answers are even released. Hopefully they make the next incarnation a lot more professional.
Xaklo Jun 16th 2011 8:46PM
Pfffbt, I said nothing about your Shifting column! Guilty conscious much? Haha.
JK! I love you Allison, keep doing what you do.
Thomas Baldwin Jun 16th 2011 5:18PM
And this is why we can't ever have anything nice... ;-)
For reals, the way you vote on the questions was definitely NOT working, but the concept was solid!
Sterb Jun 16th 2011 5:40PM
Well, that and even if a good question managed to worm its way into the list, it got a non-insightful brush off.
"We're looking into it." Great.
loop_not_defined Jun 16th 2011 6:21PM
The main problem is that Blizzard developed a system that would essentially choose questions for them. However, they sort of have to. The current incarnation (pre-mortem) of the Q&A means they can focus all their time on answering questions. What players want, however, would require far more man-hours first determining WHAT questions to answer (out of ~1000 or so) and THEN answering those questions.
This is something Blizzard has to consider, which few complaints ever have: at what point are you spending too much time interacting with the community? At what point are you pulling too much work from the game itself? Isn't it more important to actually address issues versus telling people you're going to address issues?
How many meetings is the next Q&A iteration going to require, and is a weekly time frame even remotely realistic?
Sterb Jun 16th 2011 6:41PM
Loop, part of the problem I think is that people would be more willing to simply wait and let Blizzard act if their reactions weren't so delayed or erratic. We want transparency so we can know why a well recognized bug or deficiency hasn't gotten attention and why other "it's not broke so don't fix it" things get done first.
loop_not_defined Jun 16th 2011 9:13PM
That's great, but where do you draw the line? That's my point. How many meetings about meetings can you have before nothing's really getting done? The current setup automated the process enough that they could cut out a lot of the "meetings about meetings".
It wasn't enough. To me, it seems like the forum community at large (emphasis on the "forum" part) has gotten to the point where it's no longer comfortable getting insights when possible. The community wants to drive from the passenger seat. It wants to micromanage. Seriously, your suggestion runs along the lines of requesting an oversight committee.
loop_not_defined Jun 16th 2011 9:45PM
Sterb: "We want transparency so we can know why a well recognized bug or deficiency hasn't gotten attention and why other "it's not broke so don't fix it" things get done first."
Mull over this quote for awhile. You want to be Blizzard's supervisor. It's almost word for word what I would expect from mine.
rayketh Jun 23rd 2011 4:56PM
No mention of the fact that it was in response to a thread about the WoWInsider post?
ToxicPopsicle Jun 16th 2011 5:24PM
I really hope they just go back to answering intelligent forum posts and maybe utilize their Blue Tracker feature so people can see the questions answered and not post the same already-answered question. Now I'm aware it's impossible to answer all the questions, but at least in the past, a lot of important questions the community wanted to know about got answered.
Suzaku Jun 17th 2011 12:14PM
Yeah, well, what about Ask CDev Round 2?
It's been months since they took questions for that one.
niko Jun 16th 2011 5:27PM
more than anything, I think Blizzard wants to be able to express to its subscriber base that "we care and are listening" about how people enjoy their game. It's also incredibly difficult to show that you care as a developer AND be able to not get yourself caught up in box you never intended to get yourself into. Tricky stuff, this.
That being said, they have to really improve some of their PR skills after the atrocious Tank Q&A... how they go about doing it really does seem like a tough thing to do, but they are probably right in that the "Ask the Dev" format isn't quite the place to do it.