Posts with tag blue-response

"Why do the blues only seem to comment on silly threads and never in a thread that has substance, provides meaningful insight, or merits actual discussion? This seems a complete waste of time and valuable resources."

This was part of the opening post on a thread in the US forums, discussing the Community Management team's choice of posts to respond to. And it's a reasonable question, a cursory glance at a blue tracker will reveal that many blue responses are indeed on light-hearted threads rather than on the ones demanding feedback on heavy issues. That, or they're commenting on quickly locked posts that violate the forum guidelines, elucidating the reasons for the thread's closure.

Why don't the blues respond more quickly to the weighty, substantial threads? Consider the amount of work required in the background to respond to a question about PvP balancing, for example, compared to the amount of work required to wish a forum a happy Winter Veil. While the latter simply requires a lively wit and a good knowledge of the forum code of conduct, the latter requires a good deal more input, from the developers and designers and more.

Here's the tldr version of the article for folks that are so inclined:


One of the most consistent and annoying things about the forums lately are people begging for blue responses. It's reached a near epidemic level with the greater visibility of Ghostcrawler and sites like WoW Insider, MMO-Champion, and World of Raids reporting on everything he says.

Most of this blue begging, as I've come to call it, used to occur in the General Forums; bugging for a Neth or Drysc response to everything. The begging then migrated over to the Customer Service Forums, asking for someone like Belfaire to respond (I admit I'm guilty of doing that once or twice, but hey, it worked out in the end). Now the begging is centered around the Role Forums, pleading for a Ghostcrawler response like the world is about to end if the blue beggar doesn't get one.

While surfing the forums this morning, I came across a little gem of a thread protesting against Blizzard for the following:

1. Breaking "our" addons and mods.
2. Incorporating features from popular addons into the default User Interface, and thus breaking addons and mods. There's also a sentiment that Blizzard is "stealing" these ideas rather than being innovators.
   
3. Fixing "their" bugs which in turn breaks "our" addons and mods. The suggestion is that they don't care, or could take steps to prevent this.
   

As you can imagine, all sorts of responses cropped up, including the usual people who get into arguments with other posters, players in agreement, joking and sarcastic responses, and of course, an awesome string of blue responses.

I had to look twice at the 2.4.3 patch notes before I could bring myself to believe that the developers are planning on reducing the level requirement for ponying up. It makes a lot of sense, as we ramp up toward Wrath of the Lich King, it will progressively longer to reach the endgame, especially for new characters and particularly new players. The change makes sense to me, and I'm looking forward to Desolace being a less crummy place to level alts. No, you won't get a refund on previously purchased mounts, but nobody got refunds when the cost of the level 60 riding skill decreased either.

The community seems to be having primarily positive reactions to the news that basic mounts will be purchasable by characters at level 30. Ithnnin of Scarlet Crusade (posting on a level 40) feels that this change is an added insult to the game. He feels that Blizzard has spent too much energy catering to a "small new audience." He feels that the changes to make leveling easier have a negative effect on the accomplishments of those who when through the process when it was more difficult.