Your Website Sucks, Blizzard

Blizzard, I’m pissed off.

I’m not pissed off about game mechanics or class balance or anything that’s actually in the game itself. I’m pissed off about the World of Warcraft website and how badly you neglect it. Sure on the outside it looks like a nice website with lots of nifty features, but it’s truly a piece of shit.

The Knowledge Center

Did you know it existed? Probably not. The only way you can find it is through Google or clicking on a misleading “Support Articles” link in tiny dark brown font on the bottom of the dark brown page. There’s also a link under the tiny “Support” in the upper right corner on the top gray bar. You’ll be taken to an intro page where you can select the game you want “support” for and you’re presented with a homepage full of links to outdated, duplicated, neglected articles. It’s not a “Knowledge Center” but rather a collection of piss-poor excuses for knowledgeable articles.

• Outdated information is everywhere. Nothing has been updated for what seems like years.
• Most of the articles are vague or give unclear directions for troubleshooting.
• There are up to eight duplicates of the same article, each more badly-written than the next.
• Typos. Everywhere. Fucking spellcheck, you dumbasses.
• It’s incredibly hard to find in the first place if you don’t know that it already exists. See the Twitter conversation on the right.
• It’s also incredibly hard to use and isn’t search-friendly in the slightest.
• Dead links to non-Blizzard websites abound because no one has maintained them or provided a feedback feature.

If we the players can’t figure out exactly what kind of names are banned or exactly what to do when troubleshooting, what happens? We go to the forums to get help. Where do the folks on the forums get their experience? Not the Knowledge Center.

Here’s a recurring problem we have in the Newbie forum. Folks on trial accounts have questions about the trial account restrictions such as limitations on chat channels, trading, grouping, etc. I’m happy to answer those questions. But wait, Blizzard changed the restrictions on trial accounts when they started the “Starter edition” shitstorm and they didn’t announce the changes. Now I’m telling new players incorrect information and it pisses me off to no end. I don’t like misleading people. I don’t like making mistakes because someone else fucked up and gave me the wrong information.

This a link to the “Starter Edition FAQ” on the Knowledge Base:
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=20590

Normally I would just tell you to search for it using the search box, but searching for “starter edition,” “starter edition faq,” and “starter account restrictions” turns up nothing. I’m not surprised.

Below is my revised version of the beginning of the page (click to view full size):

The amount of pain, confusion and bickering in the Newbie forum caused by this one shit-tastic article is astounding. The correct restrictions on the trial accounts aren’t listed, so Cerylia (another Newbie forum regular) and I resorted to creating a trial account and experimenting with chat/trade/group settings to see what the actual restrictions are now.

That’s pathetic. We shouldn’t have to guess and fool around with account settings like this in order to learn something that we can pass on to the new players. We should be able to link to an article and say:

Here’s a Blizzard support article detailing the trial account restrictions. Feel free to post back here if there’s anything you don’t understand! :)

<link goes here>

Instead we get folks who don’t understand the restrictions or think they’ve found a bug because the ones listed in the article aren’t accurate. Conflicting information abounds, and a while ago we had a serious issue in several threads over whether or not trial accounts were in the exp-off battlegrounds at level 20. After consulting many player-generated resources and folks on Twitter experimenting with accounts, we figured out that yes, trial accounts are in the twink 20-24 bracket. Is that basic information listed anywhere by Blizzard? No. That was a week long “I’m sorry, we have no fucking clue because Blizzard never told us” stint of threads.

Worse even are the disillusioned players that think your fucked up marketing team was telling the truth when it made “free to play to level 20!” banners everywhere. No, it’s not free to play. It’s a trial account without the time limit. And yet they continue to make “suggestion” threads every day suggesting that you remove the account restrictions or try to balance the game for the wannabe posers trying to twink at level 20 on a trial account. Do we have an article we can direct them to read that explains why the account restrictions are in place? No.

Can you tell how frustrating this is? And that’s just from one article. I can’t imagine how annoying it is to post in the Technical Support or Customer Support forums and not be able to link to an actual Blizzard resource on things that should be answered by you, Blizzard. Account settings and restrictions. Client troubleshooting basics. Port forwarding for multiple security programs with screenshots updated to a version from the last five years. Fucking basic information isn’t there and there’s a gaping hole in our usable resources.

Lack of Moderator/Blue Support

We were rejoicing tonight. Why? Because holy shit, a blue poster made a post in our forum about a subject that we struggle with on a daily basis: recruitment threads. We have something solid that we can link when people try to snark “Oh well I’m not recruiting for a guild but I’m recruiting charter signatures, so I can post here” after we tell them that recruitment in all forms is banned in our beloved forum.That’s truly, honestly sad. You know what I would love? For a moderator to use their lovely blue font to put up a list of guidelines that are specific to each forum. Something simple…

• Game suggestions belong in the General forum. Free to Play Trial accounts cannot post in the General forum. Please take the hint.
• Recruitment in all forms is banned here. Take it to your server or the guild recruitment forums.

Or at least update the “Welcome: Please Read!” sticky with guidelines that are specific to each forum so we can link to something relevant instead of a copy/paste job by the mods. I’m really tired of the trial account “suggestion” threads that devolve into Veterans vs Trials bickering matches on a daily basis. It’s not fun. I post there to help newbies, not put up with dumbasses who think they’re entitled to whine for free features without paying for the game. A blue post saying “Cut it out” would help immensely.

This forum is all about helping new players. That’s why a handful of regulars post every day, rain or shine, maintenance or not. We truly love teaching players how to play this awesome game but the forum and website neglect makes it very difficult. We’re just players – we can’t build the website for you, Blizzard, but some of us would LOVE to take it off your hands because you’re doing a shit job of maintaining it.There’s no sense of community between the moderators and the forums with less traffic. I think I can count the number of blue posts the Newbie forum (both the old website and new one) has had on one hand. There aren’t any fun “What was your first character?” or “How do your name your alts?” kind of threads here. I know that I harp on the rules and “No off-topic shit in my kitchen” more than anyone else, but it’s somewhat sad to feel so little love from the Blizzard employees. Am I fishing for more blue posts for the sake of blue posts? No. Would it be nice to see Crithto, who I know is a frequent moderator in our forum, or other blues pop in and say ahoy or offer up some advice or clarification on game issues (especially account issues, since we have no accurate resources HINT HINT)? Yeah, I think it would. Some sense of camaraderie or connection would be sweet. Hell, even a “thanks for helping newbies” might be nice.

Most of the time you guys are very fast to nix threads and lock necroposts. When you folks are on your A-game, the regulars take notice. It’s awesome. I’ll give you that and I’m very grateful for your speed. Keep it up.

Lack of Stickies

Because the Knowledge Center articles suck so hard, we’ve resorted to making our own informational articles. There are some freaking amazing threads that would make great stickies in our humble Newbie forum. They’ve been reported for stickying and bumped many times, but for some reason the moderators aren’t listening or even reading the threads so they fall to the bottom of the forum and aren’t referenced often. Anyone that glances at those threads would know immediately that they’re great potential resources that Blizzard doesn’t cover (especially the Expansion Upgrade List) so why don’t the mods sticky them? I don’t mean that every guide should be auto-stickied, but guides that are created to address repeated questions should be stickied.

Some of the class forums have few or no stickies because their guides are floating freely with high-rated posts that the moderators don’t seem to give a shit about. Are you kidding me? That’s the first place you go to look for leveling guides or end-game help. If your resources are at the bottom of the pile, they’re useless. The community is neglected and our hard work on writing those guides is all for naught if people can’t find them.

You Want Feedback?

You made a nice website, then you didn’t maintain it and now it’s out of date and shitty. The blues are out of touch with the readers in the lesser-traveled forums. In an effort to help other players in multiple forums, folks have written fantastic guides that are unfortunately neglected and left to rot on the bottom of the lake like the Knowledge Center. I love posting and I’m going to continue posting to help out new players, but for fuck’s sake help out the community and finish what you started.

Your Website Sucks, Blizzard