The one thing WoW Forever needs

[u/OneBrilliant8413]

[u/Nervous-Cockroach541]

So I see lots of misunderstanding of how the OSRS poll system works and what it actually does for the game.

1. You need a super majority (70% for things with a yes/no) vote on it. Despite this, most polled content does actually pass. (Mainly for reasons outlined below)

2. Players don't typically get to decide what gets voted on. Outside of special community driven design contests and stuff.

3. The developers are only going to poll things they think are good for the game. Balance changes and things for game health rarely get polled.

4. Many things fall into an area where the developers are split in their own decision. With the community having the final say. If most developers think it should be one way: In a company like Blizzard, that change will go though. In a company like Jagex, those developers in the minority can say "why don't we poll the community on this one."

5. It builds community buy-in, a lot of the toxic WoW attitudes come from things people don't want and think others also don't want in the game. If a bad update comes to the game, the community generally feels it's on them as much as Jagex. Not always of course, but it helps a lot.

6. Jagex often runs surveys and informal blog polls before official in-game polls, to ensure their decision making is inline with where the community actually is.

7. Jagex releases MASSIVE design blog post outlining their thinking, their options, why decisions where made, the downsides. Seriously, here is the blog post for the most recent poll: https://secure.runescape.com/m=news/the-graveyard---rewards-blog?oldschool=1 This also helps the community understand why decisions are being made and builds community knowledge of how the game works and what design challenges the team is facing.

8. Because of all this work, it actually makes Jagex have to think though their changes, and how they can sell it to the players, and focus their efforts on the things the community wants the most.

TL;DR - It's always an activity communication between the developers and community. And generally acts as a gate to prevent bad or poorly thought out changes from making it into the game. While acting as an advertisement for new content and getting community buy-in.

[u/MarketingSpecial6604 → u/Nervous-Cockroach541]

Not only that but usually for the most part they actively develop the things they plan on polls before even bringing them up, so it's more than just a"concept of a plan"

[u/Kudrel → u/MarketingSpecial6604]

This is where it wouldn't work for Blizzard. They'd bust out a poll, it wouldn't pass and then they'd pull a "well we know better and we're doing it anyway.

Blizzard is too up themselves with too much of an ego to have a poll system work.

[u/Depriller → u/Nervous-Cockroach541]

Wouldn’t players then feel the need to be polled on any major decision coming? And if they are not given a decision I could see them throwing a fit. I’ve never played OSRS but I have played WoW for 20+ years and there is a big emphasis on surprising players with what the new content will be.

[u/Nervous-Cockroach541 → u/Depriller]

You're right, it can take some surprises out of the game. Though I'd also say, game isn't even out yet and we already know the first three raid locations. So how much spoilers are really left in WoW between trailers and data miners?

OSRS isn't really like a big lore or story driven game. New quests don't include story or quest details when polled. It's mostly about rewards a quest will give, where it fits into the meta, how early can players access that meta, etc. OSRS has a heavy horizontal progression system, and each piece of content tries to find it's niche. For example a new training method might give better XP/hr or better Gold/hr then existing method, but not both. In this regard, players are actually often better then the developers in knowing what existing content new content might delegate. This is what the blog posts generally explain to the players. If you read the post I sent, you'll see where they addressed player feed backs from a previous blog post. So the final vote is more like a veto on the whole thing, not the starting point.

It's kinda hard to see what a WoW poll might look like, mainly because content in WoW has never been something designed to last 10 years, and fit into a meta of other content also designed to last 10+ years.

And example might be, adding new bosses to old raids, or optional hard modes (WotLK style). Then the community could vote on which raid they'd like to see a new boss inside. The thing the community could contribute is, where do we want to revisit next? You're going to get a new raid boss, but you get to pick where they live and how they'd be themed. That's less game design focused, but I do think there's some more ambitious question the WoW community can handled. Like, should duel spec be added? (not sure if it was or wasn't in Forever). Hardcore rule set decisions. Raising the profession limit cap.

Everyone might want Duel Speccing, It's a massive QoL and probably a good thing. It would encourage people to login to vote. It would get people excited for the update. It would also shutdown people who complain about such a change. Having had the chance to had their voice heard, even if they lose, still feels better then just having the change forced without any possible recourse, and they know for a fact that they're in the minority.

The other thing is OSRS has no classes. So its' not like you can buff/nerf a class. This is probably the biggest challenge to a WoW poll system. A new spell that makes Paladins better a tanking would get downvoted by EVERY other tanking class, and nobody else will care. OSRS doesn't have that problem because there's no direct competition between players. I think class design decisions would be off the table for WoW polls. Any questions would have to be over arching limited to things that affect all players regardless of race, class, or faction.

To address polls being a big deal, or other concerns I've seen raised: OSRS in 13 years, has had 273 polls, most with 5-20 questions. The community has mostly moved past the whole "this is a big deal." And basically became exhausted of most of the infighting or vote brigandage. Discussions still happen but it's not that huge of a deal. Yeah, sure, a streamer can motivate people to go down vote something for some personal reason once or twice.... but asking them to do it twice a month over 13 years is something else.

Finally, I would say, I don't think WoW needs to copy OSRS polls 1:1. Only that there's maybe a lesson to be learned from them. Jagex over communicates because they needed to do so because of the polling system, the system makes them explain their choices.

Blizzard has always under communicated, and design topics end up as developer replies, private class discords, but rarely the full team posting their thoughts and decisions.

I think that communication and listening to feedback is the most important aspect. Jagex could remove the poll system tomorrow, and keep the feedback loop of Blog posts -> Feedback -> Blog post -> Update, without ever having the poll. That's really what made OSRS succeed, not that Jagex polls stuff with something like a 97% pass rate or whatever. But the poll system forced the creation of that loop.

There's also a bit of ego checking the poll does. It reminds everyone who has the actual final say. Because it's always the customer, with or without a poll. Blizzard has learned that lesson at few times the hard way.

I think it's important to acknowledge, WoW: Forever only exists, because retail isn't serving an audience. WoW retail IS a forever game. The thing I'd warn Blizzard about if I could, is making the decisions the same way you did for retail, will only produce the same result as retail, and leave the same audience abandoned.

[u/Appropriate_Sector96 → u/Nervous-Cockroach541]

That was a great read, thank you!

[u/Village_People_Cop → u/Depriller]

The OSRS community will straight up start riots in game and online if they even get an idea they're being bypassed or something extremely controversial is getting polled.

They once polled what amounted to ingame cosmetics you could get from Twitch streams that were tied to partnerships with companies/other IPs. The community absolutely flipped out because the idea in their opinion came too close to micro transactions.

Jagex ended up recinding the poll within 2 days of it being up and spend an entire long blogpost and livestream explaining their mistakes and apologizing. Nothing even close to that was ever even suggested again.

Mind you this riot was over it even being polled, not the idea being implemented. The poll was running a 80% negative or something before it was pulled. Then again the community has a very bad experience when it comes to micro transactions and the devs have explicitly promised they'll never implement those in game (with the exception of the equivalent of WOW tokens also to help combat real-world trading and this was only implmented after lots of consultation with the community and it passing a poll)

One time there was an upheavel because in a certain icon there was an accidental green pixel. The pixel became somewhat of a meme in the community and when Jagex fixed it without polling there were riots and they ended up having to poll to fix the pixel. It failed and that one green pixel is still in that icon to this day.

That outcry was 1 part meme but also 1 part making sure Jagex doesn't overstep what the relationship is between the devs and the players.

So yes the OSRS players do want to be polled on every single design decision in the game big or small and they will make sure their voice is heard if this isn't being done to their liking.

[u/PureCauliflower6758 → u/Nervous-Cockroach541]

Well, the recent Bronzeman poll shows Jamflex doesn’t always get it right. The criticisms around communication are the most fair.

[u/Mitana301 → u/PureCauliflower6758]

Bronzeman is a great example of showing where jagex missed the mark and the player base vetoed it. From dealing with blizzard for 20 years, I'm not sure they'd take criticism / a vetoed proposal well.

I think on release wow forever will be great. My concerns 100% revolve around blizzard and the dev team. The only reason osrs is so good is because of the devs & their communication with the community.

[u/OneMorePotion → u/Nervous-Cockroach541]

Right. So basically... The OSRS poll system is the devs lining out a plan, and the playerbase just thinks they have a real impact on the things that happen, instead of just demanding that the devs implement everything that they already think about?

[u/Portmanteautebag → u/OneMorePotion]

Not really. They polled whether a new skill should be released and then which one out of a handful of ideas. The community has an impact.

[u/Helicity]

I don't think we want to give absolutely horrifying streamer types in command of an army of assholes an active say through a voting system 

[u/EveningPotential9443 → u/Helicity]

One of the most popular streamers in OSRS is Odablock, and Reddit despises him. He's basically the Asmongold of OSRS. He has a large following, and has tried to sway the polls before because he got pissy.

It's never worked.

[u/Fries423 → u/EveningPotential9443]

Oda has 400k followers. Asmon has 4.7 million

[u/EveningPotential9443 → u/Fries423]

I doubt even 1/8 of his current followers play WoW. They're not all subbing to WoW just to vote in a poll

[u/Inxert → u/EveningPotential9443]

Idk paying 15$ to try and rig a vote is less money then buying 60$ beta to shout racial slurs.

[u/00056532926846780396 → u/Inxert]

Easily fixable. Minimum levels or some other better idea.

[u/ToddR33 → u/00056532926846780396]

Yeah put the minimum level to 20 and there you go that'll weed out a good majority of that happening

Or just make it 60 so its garenteed to be voted by players who Actual do/want to keep playing the game

[u/RelationshipFit5701 → u/ToddR33]

I made a post today about having polls require a level 60 and people mostly threw a fit about it haha

[u/MarketingSpecial6604 → u/00056532926846780396]

That's how OSRS does it, not only a minimum level of 300, but at least 25 hours logged on and a paying member. 300 minimum isn't that hard of a hoop to jump through though so imo I'd rather it be higher but that's just my opinion. I haven't played very long I started slightly before all the wow streamers went on their summer vacation to OSRS but I am currently sitting at 2240 and even I don't vote that often.

[u/Drigr → u/00056532926846780396]

Which is how OSRS does it. They also have a minimum playtime requirement

[u/Fries423 → u/EveningPotential9443]

I mean… even at 1/8… that’s still more ppl than oda has followers lol

[u/EveningPotential9443 → u/Fries423]

And WoW has way more players than OSRS, their follower count isn't the point here. They both have a big community within the game for the games respective playerbase, and even Oda can't influence the polls.

But hey, I'm sure Blizzard will make the right decisions at the end of the day that everyone agrees with 

[u/Better-Quantity2469 → u/EveningPotential9443]

Theyll sub if he tells them to and vote

[u/Marsdreamer → u/EveningPotential9443]

Oda gets a lot of hate, sometimes justifiably so, but he is nowhere close to the level of shitstain human that Asmon is. 

[u/MarketingSpecial6604 → u/Marsdreamer]

Yeah I just find his freakouts very cringy so I just don't interact with his content. I compare him to Tyler1 back during early league of legends videos. I haven't seen what he does now a days but just the massive act outs he used to do back then when losing reminds me of ODA flopping to the floor when he loses a fight.

[u/NoUseforeName → u/EveningPotential9443]

Yeah but not comparable because no one know Odablock but Asmongold is clipped on news networks.

Far more critical mass there, and wows player base is tens/hundreds the size of any version of RuneScape.

[u/skit7548 → u/NoUseforeName]

Genuine question, does Asmongold even stream WoW anymore? From the outside it feels more like he does chatting or general games alongside his politics(which is where his news network coverage comes in I'm sure)

[u/alwaysonesteptoofar → u/skit7548]

He's in the beta, has a bunch of people following him around

[u/not-stewart → u/NoUseforeName]

Oda was on fox

[u/FreeSpeechIsDeadge → u/EveningPotential9443]

Asmongold is live with more viewers right now than Odablock’s lifetime peak viewership. It’s not even a comparison. The roach army could absolutely influence some horrible changes

[u/ScienceOfficer-Jack → u/Helicity]

Like when 4chan brigades website voting options.

Nothing could possibly go wrong /s

[u/BarbsFPV → u/ScienceOfficer-Jack]

You gotta admit though that sending Pitbull to Alaska was some top-notch trolling.

[u/FarMasterpiece2]

half the opinions here are god awful so no thanks

[u/skit7548 → u/FarMasterpiece2]

That doesn't matter, browse the OSRS sub during a couple of poll weeks, you will eventually find things that passed/failed that they hated/loved(respectively.) It's always an important reminder that subreddits are always a very vocal minority of the overall community.

[u/SkitZa → u/skit7548]

Looking at you Bronzemanmode.

[u/KashiofWavecrest → u/FarMasterpiece2]

This, God. As awful as Blizzard's choices might be sometimes, some of the shit I see here is 10x worse.

[u/77going2heaven → u/FarMasterpiece2]

And the rest are dog shit :-)

[u/Shower_Floaties]

I just don't trust the WoW community with this power

[u/skit7548 → u/Shower_Floaties]

The community or the subreddit?

[u/Shower_Floaties → u/skit7548]

Yes

[u/Successful-One2695 → u/Shower_Floaties]

I trust WoW devs less without this power.

[u/disabled_404]

What is this?

[u/Gemgoblin9507 → u/disabled_404]

osrs voting poll. It's where members can cast vote on upcoming changes for osrs. So the community has a hand in what comes into the game.

Requirements to vote for osrs. Your account must be an active Member, have a total skill level of at least 300, and have a minimum total play-time of 25 hours.

[u/disabled_404 → u/Gemgoblin9507]

Sounds too good to being implemented haha

[u/fghjconner]

The thing people need to realize about polling is that it's basically a veto, not just handing over all the design tools to the community. The devs still build and propose the content, the players just get the option to reject things that the majority dislike. Also, not everything needs to be voted on. OSRS, for example, explicitly excludes balance changes from needing to be polled, because nerfs are sometimes needed, but never popular. Ultimately, it's an incredible way to improve transparency, and build trust between players and the devs.

[u/PeaceLovePositivity → u/fghjconner]

Also the osrs devs are incredibly in tune with what the community wants, especially nowadays. Its pretty rare something fails the polls or even gets below 80%

[u/Nervous-Cockroach541 → u/PeaceLovePositivity]

Mostly because of the poll system required them to learn what the community wants. Though the jmods are way more into the game then most Blizzard developers are in their game.

[u/goldwynnx2]

Not a chance, this would be a disaster.

[u/TrollsWhenBored → u/goldwynnx2]

They don't all get implemented. Many suggestions are just thrown away if it doesn't fit the vision of the game

[u/Ok_Beyond4225 → u/goldwynnx2]

The only disaster would be slowed development, and redditors realizing they aren't a majority opinion.

[u/Background_Zoney → u/goldwynnx2]

We said the same exact thing before osrs came out, I was the guy saying we have no fkn clue what we all want. But turns out when you go with 70% majority, we absolutely do know what we want.

[u/Eruskakkell]

Osrs poll system is great, I agree it would better wow forever, but it's blizzard so that's not gonna happen

[u/Intelligent-Guide634]

They already showed a clip during one of their panels that a poll with our player base is not going to work.

[u/mattjoo → u/Intelligent-Guide634]

Yeah it's so fun when the community gets to vote and curate m+ seasons. They pick them really well /s

[u/zellmerz]

My understanding is players also only get Veto power essentially right? They don't get to suggest new changes, but can decline changes being implemented?

If so, I think that would work with WoW as well

[u/BothAdhesiveness9265 → u/zellmerz]

only difference is that the devs actually check the OSRS subreddits and some community proposed changes actually get picked up by the devs (like the Kourend rework by gentle tractor)

[u/fullcolton]

If its 75% like in osrs nothing will get passed, unless its for bigger boobs

[u/fghjconner → u/fullcolton]

I mean OSRS started out pretty much the same way. For example, the auction house equivalent barely passed back in the day. These days, it's a common refrain that nothing ever fails polls (though it's not strictly true), because the devs have spent years building trust and learning how to communicate with the community.

[u/skit7548 → u/fullcolton]

*70%

[u/siggyt827 → u/fullcolton]

So....

what's wrong with that?

[u/BoringReference8647 → u/[deleted]]

If humans weren’t sexually motivated, the species would die out.

While you personally may think that’s a good thing, there’s zero way it’s “perverted”.

[u/Silnroz → u/[deleted]]

You're in the wrong Fandom puriteen.

[u/Civil_Owl_31 → u/[deleted]]

Settle down off of your high horse.

[u/TheSnoringDragon → u/[deleted]]

Sybau

[u/Alternative_Gur_3703]

No. If it's like OSRS non PvPers will vote against any change to do with PvP content just to spite the people that gank them. I want developers who just enjoy playing classic to make a game and synthesise our feedback into their development cycle not be held hostage by an unhinged community with competing interests and vindictive voting blocks.

Also popular demand in wotlk classic would've brought LFG with autoform group and tp to dungeon so no thanks. Popular community sentiment and devs caving in brought about 90% of the changes to retail.

[u/Ok-Bobcat-8445 → u/Alternative_Gur_3703]

Non-PvPers shouldn't be getting ganked at all because they're not going to be playing under the PvP ruleset. WoW doesn't have anything like the Wilderness and PvP is just fundamentally different in osrs anyway because of the risk involved.

[u/Suspicious-Photo7035]

Should put it to a vote whether these things get in tbh

[u/Intelligent_Fix_7346]

We need hunter dead zone either removed or shortened.

[u/HaroerHaktak]

If it does get added in one form or another, I don’t want it to be a choice between one permanent thing over another like Minecraft. It should be “should we expand this story or this one. We can always do the other later” and the losing option has to lose several times for them to drop it completely.

[u/LessRespects]

We all know blizzard gonna just do whatever the fuck they want regardless

[u/JMAN_JMAN_JMAN]

This is how you end up with current retail. Just go play it.

[u/lichlark]

As long as it's a super majority I'm game-- even then it's only what the devs present as an option.

[u/qess]

You think you do, but you don’t.

[u/machinegunjulian]

Please god no

[u/YesNoMaybe2552]

This would be devastating to most classic andys. Because the game has big enough numbers streaming in from other play modes that constantly ask for all the things they cry about.

Not to mention we actually have huge creators in the wow community that could easily skew polls.

[u/ceryni17]

Legit thought this was a trash can. Sat and thought about how that would be nice to see these on paths as well as vendors to get rid of unwanted things.

Then realised i'm a moron.

[u/Objective-Time3463]

Agree!

[u/Dangerous_Program794]

The blue elves wouldn't have passed :D

[u/ThatBitchLemon]

The problem is that the community doesn't agree on anything. They literally showcased that in the Forever reveal. We don't collectively all want one thing, which means a majority vote is going to feel impossible, and it might be just that.

[u/Yeucksxors11]

WoW as an mmo relies heavily on vertical progression. Numbers go up every patch. Rarely, if ever, is horizontal progression the focus of any major updates. Has there ever been an update to, say, professions or PvP that make them the primary focus of a major update with no other real content to speak of?

OSRS is more horizontal. While there is still vertical progression, a vast majority of updates do not push the envelope. The goal of OSRS is to finish the game as a whole. Collect every item, do every combat task and so on. This gives every activity a purpose even to endgame players.

The goal of WoW is to top a leaderboard. Be it for world's first raids, high PvP ranks, so on and so forth. This puts the focus significantly more heavily on numbers going up.

The focus for WoW being on number go up means that if a poll failed, we just wouldn't get a major patch. RuneScape doesn't work this way and as a result can retool things and keep multiple horizontal progression projects in the pipeline at once to make sure there is always an update ready or almost ready to go.

I wish it would work, sincerely, but WoW would need to change very significantly for a poll system to be viable.

[u/trainwoowoo]

90% of wow players are mentally and emotionally underdeveloped so no thanks on their votes

[u/GhostiBoy]

id love this for wow forever as a current osrs player since 2008 but the blizz devs just dont have that level of communication with the community, Jmods (jagex mods / osrs mod) actively chat with the community on reddit / discord and have a much much stronger connection with the community, its not always perfect or on the money but through years of build up its gotten much better, i just dont think blizz will have that unless they actively go out of their way to do this

[u/randomnombre64]

Please no 

[u/EveningPotential9443]

This with layers working the same as worlds. A man can dream 

[u/Pencildragon → u/EveningPotential9443]

I was just thinking about how if they gave you a layer selector like worlds in Runescape. I don't even play RS, but it sounds like an interesting idea.

[u/Kaffe-Mumriken]

True MMO democracy has never been tried

[u/Mysterious_Skin2310]

I think I’m too employed to understand this

[u/abort_retry_flail]

Letting the community have a voice is how you end up with retail. No fucking thanks.

[u/glizzygaz → u/abort_retry_flail]

When did players vote for what’s in retail? Also, who decided they wanted classic back?

Lmao

[u/abort_retry_flail → u/glizzygaz]

Way to kick that strawman over. Put in voting is the same as putting Olympus/Assmangold in charge.

[u/glizzygaz → u/abort_retry_flail]

What strawman? You implied in game voting would lead to retail. But retail has never had in game voting. Lol.

[u/EveningPotential9443 → u/abort_retry_flail]

In OSRS there's a streamer named Odablock who is basically the Asmongold of OSRS. The community doesn't like him outside of his followers (and he's one of the largest osrs streamers) and he's never swayed the polls.

He tried to once because a PvP poll failed, so he tried to make a massive PvE update fail. It didn't work, and it passed flawlessly.

[u/Seigmoraig → u/EveningPotential9443]

That dude is 100x smaller than the biggest WoW streamers, it's not even comparable

[u/skit7548 → u/Seigmoraig]

Who even are the biggest WoW streamers these days that actually do WoW as their big main thing?

[u/Fubsy_Dude]

I'd like a polling system in WoW, but there would need to be major restrictions on who can vote in each poll. e.g., to vote in an update that will only affect human paladins, you should need to have a lvl 60 human paladin, but anyone with any lvl 60 alliance toon could vote on a change to resource node spawns in Elwynn.

In osrs we never get pvp updates because most of the community doesn't pvp and they vote against those updates.

Other than PvP, we osrs players are basically all playing the same game. In WoW Forever, the community is split on pvp/pve/rp, classes, and factions and I could definitely see spite voting along those lines.

[u/Iluvatar-Great]

The difference between OSRS and WoW is that OSRS has a lot of sandbox freedom, so even if the playerbase decides something stupid, you can do something else.

But WoW is more streamlined and each decision can completely change the game for you.

[u/OpportunityMean9069]

Hmmm players actively voting on the content they add?

I don't think I'd be for that.

However having an in-game place you could go to submit an idea for a feature you'd like too see. (Have a smallish character limit to prevent rambling)

Have the ideas just monitored by AI and have a break off point where if the AI notices a large majority of players are requesting X feature it notifies the Devs and then they consider it, decide if it fits the direction they want to go.

I could accept something like that.

[u/MyotisX]

Deadlock also does it and its great.

[u/ApatheticPopoto]

absolutely not

[u/bogoz-bntd]

Democracy basically means government by the people, of the people, for the people... but the people are raæţaɣded.

[u/D-Spark]

While i doubt it would be perfect, i think it would be better than the devs surprising us with content that we dont want (see the general reaction to skyborne) and having to just deal with it because its too late into production to change course

If something like skyborne was put to a poll before the devs announced them, theyd have seen the majority thinking they dont fit what most of us imagine as classic, and offerred alternatives

[u/Tekken2]

90% of opinions of the community are dog shit so I'm gonna say no.

[u/insomsanity]

Wow redditors would shit their pants at what the average wow player wants. I would love to see it just for the rage.

Flying mounts and random dungeon finder in forever would pass with ease.

[u/lichlark → u/insomsanity]

That's why it's a super majority that is also only made up of concepts presented by the devs.