How active do you want Blizzard in the WoW community?

[Hagakure]

The natural reaction to this question, how active would you like to see a developer in its own community, is generally a very in factice ‘very active!’ The reason being strong developer support can be a godsend in most genres, such as Valves support of the many mods and maps for its game Half-Life or hell Blizzards support of it’s games though a long history of patches and pseudo expansions via patches (anyone whose played D2 for awhile knows the patches them selves have add so much content to the game lesser companies would have bundled most of it together to sell as a2nd expansion pack).

While all of that is great it comes at a stark contrast to the community most of us are used to though years of playing EQ, lets face it if you where searching for a monster database, character profile webpage, maps, or even just a large area to meet your follow players chances are your going to end up using a 3rd party webpage over anything ‘Official’ from SoE. Whether or not such a community grew though SoE utter lack of support or that it was just bound to happen is one thing, but with WoW coming out where going to start seeing lots of EQ page shifting there focus/content and some of the larger sites already dedicate themselves to multiple MMORPG’s.

With that in mind I’m honestly wondering where some of you guys fall on this issue? Would you rather see Blizzard set-up and take the community on it’s back or would you rather they stick to providing slightly in-depth ‘box information’ (e.g. the same type of information you’d see on the back of most game boxes, like a generalized over view of the classes for instances)?

[Soes]

I'm sure Blizzard will have tons of hard data about WoW available somewhere on their site (stats, items, class guides etc..). They did it with Diablo 2 (The Arreat Summit), from what I understand it was originally a fansite similar to Allakhazam, Blizzard just made it official. As long as they stay away from spoilers, I'd like them to be as active as possible with the community.

[Tuco]

I know Blizzard intending on having a diablo2 information site up at release, and have it function as a fansite, which met moderate success. I believe they intend to do the same thing with www.worldofwarcraft.com

Of course, a third party fansite has lesser or no inhibition about spoilers, compared to an official company. You won't see blizzard hosting a detailed quest guide for every quest, yet you'll see something like that on fan based website.

As far as the question goes, GM events, when done right, can be much more 'cool' than scripted events. I'm not talking about a level 40 ogre SK played by some employee running around Oasis and killing all the croc-hunters till a high level kills him, I'm talking about a continual event lasting several weeks that is geared towards high levels, they had something similar for Shadowbane(where my city got a cool statue from it =D) or something.

I would also hope for a full time team(a dozen people or less) that is made simply for creating new content, new quests, etc. The best way to make dynamic, continually 'fresh' content is to have this team inserting new content, I don't care much about forums, chats, websites etc, but new content in the game, and well thought out GM events.

[Goliath]

Anything is better then Verant/SoE. Lol I remember when they closed there forums because they couldn't handle criticism or even constructive criticism. At least Blizzard has official forrums for all of there games and they actually respond to just about everything they can.

[Iannis]

I want them to give me hugs and create free Muffins into my inventory.

[murghkhor]

Upon release for War 3 and it's expansion FT, Blizzard released its own websites for them

War 3 http://www.blizzard.com/War3/
FT http://www.blizzard.com/War3x/

These were and still are, the most detailed websites for all kinds of stats on the games. They have all spells for all mobs, all heroes, and all units, detailed to the most minor things. Detailed info on all units, buildings, races in the game and all of it official and hence accurate and the info gets updated with the patch.

PLUS they included TONS of strategies on all games. Any successful strategy being used on B.net they would write up and post here so everyone knows about it and starts developing counters. Often they would themselves post the counters to those strats. They had race specific, or map specific, build orders and strats and replays to learn from and TONS AND TONS OF LORE.

I always found it a great resource.

If Blizzard intends to do something similar we will never have to worry about whether the data we got from castersrealm etc was updated or when someone would make a Lucy like program to listen in on the net tranfer.

So hell yes. 'Actively Involved'. Please.

[frott]

i am not going to use any online help resources, and reinvent the wheel, in the name of fun and preservation of gameplay. I'm not turning this into another EQ with my nose to the spoiler sites in the name of "being well informed."

I did the same with FFXI, but it was impossible to not join a party and have someone in group spoil some quest I didn't know about.
Invariably, with any mmorpg that involves time and work in order to advance, you will have those taking shortcuts to "win" if blizz does it or not, i don't care.

If i were to use this sort of info, sure it'd be nice if a free, "official" ad-less environs did it.

[Waterless]

Personally, I'm hoping that they form an in-game gestapo to thoroughly and efficiently regulate the behavior of the players. In my dream WoW, B.net kiddies will log in terror and try to use INconspicuous names to avoid the seemingly random wrath of the WSS, griefers will be gathered en-masse for WSS sponsored Crowd Control demonstrations, and the gamer elites will be catered to, their every whim and urge instantly fulfilled no matter the cost to the other, less important players. Eventually, unless you're in a top-teir guild, the only way that the WSS will allow you to play is if you fill strict playtime quotas, and pay a tithe of both in-game and real-world money to both Blizzard and everyone in the top-teir guilds. Also, a special arm of the WSS will control grammar and spelling with an iron fist, penalizing the slightest grammatical or spelling error with the immediate distribution of the player's personal and credit card information to hardcore gay midgit donkey porno sites on the first offense, and the signing up of a lifetime membership to the Anna Nicole Fanclub for any recurring offences.

Well, either that or just fast and cohesive responses to bugs and in-game errors. Really, I could go either way.

[Algol Devilstar]

The question is retarded, but I'm probably the only one of that opinion as lots of people like to talk about stupid shit on this board now.

New Post Example: Does Blizzard Wipe W/ Charmin OR Are The Bears on the Commercial Too Disturbing For Words?

Which would include a dissection of the commercial showing different poses of the bears wiping. Then comes the even more head scratching topic: Do they wipe front to back or back to front? Oh, the possibilities..

Oh, and if you do use that title, at least credit me!

[Hagakure]

Originally posted by Waterless *snip*

Is it strange I’m finding myself loving that idea?

If I get into a top-tier guild then I’ll have my ever wish granted and if I don’t then at least I’ll have something to bitch about on the internet! Its win fucken win!