MMO-Champion - Patch 5.3 - Pet Battle Spectating, Blue Tweets, Riot - Toxic Player Behavior, Fan Art
The Making Of: Diablo, Blue Posts, Community Commentary: Why Can't We Be Friends?, Mephisto's Visage Fan Art

Patch 5.3 - Pet Battle Spectating

WoWkemon Addon - Pet Battle Spectating
To go along with the spectating added in Patch 5.3, you can also see the numbers with the WoWkemon Addon's spectate mode. We looked at WoWkemon late last year, but spectate mode is a newer feature. Unfortunately it only works with players on your realm for now, but you can always submit suggestions to the author!

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Reputation / Questing
The problem is when trivial content (dailies) is needed for better content ("bonus" rolls). Would like them removed
We are trying out options that aren't trivial or solo, such as rare mobs or summonable bosses. (Source)
But we do want to motivate players to get out into the world and not just tunnel on instances 100% of the time. (Source)

We've chatted about item squish... Ever considered a level squish? You know, lowering the cap back to 60 and readjusting.
What is the ultimate goal there? To speed leveling? To make it less intimidating? (Source)

23 Wisdoms and 9 Powers. Wisdom isn't the issue.
Wisdom was the issue when everyone ran tons of MSV and less HoF. Now folks run MSV less and so have lots of Wisdom. (Source)

Do you guys plan to fix up Silvermoon soon? The Sunwell has been restore since 2 expansions ago.
What new content would you be willing to give up so that artists could focus on Silvermoon? (Source)
It should be done for consistency. How about you make a patch focused on Lor'Themar, Velen/Anduin and revamp both BC zones ^_^
I'm not sure many players get excited about consistency. In a world of infinite artists, I'd totally agree. (Source)

"Would you spend art time on Silvermoon or new raid?" Huge bummer that this is even an "or" question, and it's happening a lot
Why? There are a limited number of hours in the day and we can only hire folks so fast. (Source)
And even if we could double our art team tomorrow, I'd then ask do you want 1 raid + Silvermoon or 2 raids? (Source)
Prioritization is just a part of this or any business. It's not a questions of being cheap. It's a question of bang for the buck. (Source)
I get it can remove the fantasy of the world to portray things in terms of artist hours, but those are very real considerations. (Source)

Does the potential low-pop/imbalanced server solution also address the poor economies of these servers?
Poor economy plus the lack of people for group content are the main problems in our minds. (Source)

What if raiding was an option, daily questing was an option and dungeons were an option?
Then my expectation is players would choose the most efficient path (not the most fun) and tunnel on that one. (Source)

in comparison to dungeon/raid ,class,race,zones and new features dev time what would it take to give WoW a new graphic engine?
We improve it every expansion. What is your imagined goal behind scrapping it and starting over? (Source)
WoW is more complex, but based on games I've done before, a new engine could take 4-5 engineers 2-3 years - VERY rough guess. (Source)

We have heard what you didn't like or thought could be better. What did you like about Mists? What do you like coming up?
Like: The new talent tree and glyph design. Challenge Modes. Wrathion. Cho. (Source)
Like: Less teleporting; the world feels like a world. Bonus rolls. Large raids. The farm. Brawler's Guild. Pet battles. (Source)

Is there an internal check that can distinguish between interesting for a developers mind vs player or is it metric reliant?
That is a very relevant question. We discuss all the time whether X is fun for the player or fun for the designer. Very easy trap. (Source)
It's not something I can explore via Twitter, but might make an interesting blog. Very common rookie mistake (though I make it too). (Source)

GC,how often do you restrain yourself from replying to some of these tweets with "Stop being bad"?Props for putting up with it
It wouldn't be worth it in the long run. If I don't show respect to players, they have every right to lose respect for me. (Source)

Bring back BC developers please.
Most of them are still here. (Source)

And really an entire continent of NPC’s telling me to slow down so you don’t have to design more content got old fast.
We are releasing patches faster than ever before. (Source)

Riot GDC Presentation: Reducing Toxic Player Behavior
Riot had a presentation at GDC this year about how they addressed toxic behavior by League of Legends players. WoW also has its own share of toxic behavior, and while their solutions are not directly applicable to WoW, it is still an interesting presentation! You can see the whole presentation here.

  • A significant number of players say that they are quitting LoL due to bad player behavior.
  • 98% of players only have infrequent and non severe toxic behavior and 2% of players have more frequent and severe toxic behavior. (Slide)
  • Riot looked at what would happen if they removed the worst 2% of players, but found that the occasional toxic behavior of the other 98% of players made most games appear to still have toxic behavior. (Slide)

  • Shield Players from Negative Behavior
    • The first experiment involved turning off cross team chat by default for players, but allowing them to turn it back on.
    • This dropped the amount of games that used cross team chat by 1%, from 46% to 47%.
    • This caused a 32% drop in negative chat (that led to a report), 2% drop in neutral chat, and 35% increase in positive chat. (Slide)
    • This also dropped the amount of reports per active player by 6-17% in different categories of toxic behavior. (Slide)

  • Reform or Remove Toxic Players
    • Players can report others for negative behavior in game and the Tribunal system will build a case for frequent offenders. This case includes chat logs, as well as parts of the gameplay.
    • The community then is allowed to vote to Pardon or Punish the offender.
    • When comparing the Tribunal decision to the judgement of the official support staff for a sample set of cases, the outcome was the same 80% of the time. Most of the time when the judgement was not the same, the players were actually more lenient than the official staff would have been.
    • Examples: Case 1, Case 2, Case 3.
    • Riot then added reform cards that are sent to the player after they were banned. These include the judgement, punishment, and evidence from the case.
    • The cards that explained why a player was banned and showing them what they did caused player recidivism rates to go down by 2-13% in future games. The recidivism rate previously went up when players just received a vague a ban notice. (Slide)
    • The offending player is also able to link the card to everyone else, which ended up in the community agreeing with the decision most of the time. (Slide)
    • Some of the banned players even claimed they learned something from being the feedback offered after they were banned! (Slide)

  • Create a Culture of Sportsmanship
    • There are five categories for tips shown in game: Fun Facts, Positive Behavior, Negative Behavior, Self-reflection, and Gameplay Tips. (Examples)
    • Each tip could then use one of three front colors: Red, Blue, and White.
    • Then the tip was either placed on the Loading Screen, In Game, Both, or Nowhere.
    • Every game got a random combination of these variables with a 10% set of games that acted as a control, having none of these tips.
    • Games with the tip: "X% of players punished by the Tribunal improve their behavior and are never punished again" in white on the Loading Screen saw a 4-6% decrease in toxic behaviors. (Slide)
    • The next tip had some interesting results depending on font color: "Teammates perform worse if you harass them after a mistake." (Slide)
      • Red - 6-11% decrease in toxic behaviors.
      • White - Negligible impact.
    • As did this one: "Players who cooperate with their teammates win X% more games." (Slide)
      • Blue - 4-6% decrease in toxic behaviors.
      • Red - Negligible impact.
    • Some tips didn't do so well, as this one cause a 5-15% increase in toxic behavior with a red color: "Who will be the most sportsmanlike player in the game?" (Slide)

Fan Art
This is some interesting fan art that appeared on Reddit today, involving exporting WoW assets and replacing elements, then rendering them in another program. You can follow the artist's progress here.

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