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Pet Battles forum section
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Post by
Thror
Can we have one please? :3
Post by
asakawa
I don't see a great deal of merit in the idea of a whole forum for such a small subject. Perhaps it will really take off and we'll see WoW General being taken over by 90% pet battle topics but I'm sure we can deal with this should it happen rather than splintering off discussion into discrete areas prematurely.(##RESPBREAK##)16##DELIM##asakawa##DELIM##
Post by
Thror
For the last two years, I have been fairly disappointed about the dismissal here, especially because I find the notion that a Pet Battle forum section would only be considered viable if General was overrun by Pet Battle topics really really wrong. I decided to try and "bump" this with some more arguments, this time with some nice numbers to give more leverage to my suggestion.
First of all I would like to say why I think the whole "General section" thing is unreasonable. The General forum is a forum with an extremely wide variety of topics, and you really can't expect Pet Battle enthusiasts to come to Wowhead, look at the forums with the intention to have a nice talk about Pet Battles... and somehow figuring out that they should look in the General section and rake through the piles of random topics (I personally find the General section the worst of all Wowhead sections because of how ambiguous it is. It really serves mostly as a spot for News articles.) to find a topic about Pet Battles. Like... how can you even find that realistic? I am not surprised that there has not been a major topic about Pet Battles in the General section, it was absolutely forseeable.
Second of all, if we go past the "general forum" thing, and look at the base of your argument, Asakawa, which basically says: "We will consider adding a Pet Battle forum section if we see that there is sufficient interest in Pet Battles.". Allow me to show you some things:
The "Guides" section of Wowhead actually has a "Pet Battles" section.
The guides in the "Pet Battles" section have accumulated... this is a rough estimate, but I am pretty sure it is not far from
3 million views
? Is that not enough to call it an interesting subject matter?
The guides in the "Pet Battles" section also have like... 400 comments? That seems to be more than all the topics in the first page of Wowhead's Diablo 3 section have.
I think that all proves that pet battles are not a "small subject" and that there would be people willing to talk about the subject. If you would like an example of how a section about Pet Battles could work, I suggest checking out the
US
and
EU
official WoW forums. There is a fairly large amount of diverse topics there.
I would also like to suggest that it could be extremely effective if Wowhead mentioned on Facebook (With 300k+ likes, Wowhead has an amazing Facebook presence) that a Pet Battles section has been added. I am pretty sure there would be people who would appreciate the ability to chat about pet battles without the "region lock" (that you have on the US/EU forums that strictly bind you to your region).
So yeah. I would appreciate if you guys gave a Pet Battle forum section a second thought.
Post by
Interest
Been looking for a post about a Pet Battle board. Sorry if this counts as a necro.
I second this idea. A lot of teambuilding discussion for PvP Pet Battles in particular could take place on the board, along with discussions of the Pet Battle metagame, etc. It might also be a nice place to consolidate other teambuilding discussion in general, since guides and Pet Battle NPC comments can sometimes be woefully outdated and frustrating to find.
Speaking of comments on teambuilding for NPCs, a load of team comps to defeat them are highly upvoted, indicating that those pages receive significant traffic and that there's a high level of interest in Pet Battling. That's even more evidence to add to the pile above indicating that this "small subject" sees a lot of discussion worthy of a board.
On a semi off-topic, but highly relevant note:
I have been fairly disappointed about the dismissal here
I strongly agree. I get there's generally a lot of features on the radar for Wowhead, but an implied lack of consideration is upsetting, to say the least. It gives a feeling that feedback/criticism falls on deaf ears.
Post by
asakawa
Hmm, I don't remember seeing Thror's followup in 2014... he was disappointed for over 2 years?!
Well, first of all, that was just me talking; giving my honest opinion. He wasn't dismissed, he was heard, understood and disagreed with. (By me. I didn't discuss it with anyone else).
I still disagree, and the intervening years only make my objection to the idea all the stronger. For the same reason I mentioned. Splintering discussion is a benefit when the discussion of a single topic is actively hindering or confusing all other discussion. Before that point it serves nobody and only hides the discussions that are taking place from lots of people who would enjoy taking part.
Meanwhile we can see that, while you and Thror both want a Pet Battle forum, neither of you has ever made a thread discussing Pet Battles. And that is my point in a nutshell. To be worth discussing there needs to be a clear trend of more and more threads being made and the clear notion that there's a community in existence surrounding the topic that needs its own home in order to grow further and flourish. We haven't seen anything even close to that in 2012, 2014 or now. If we made a forum would it be a busy hive of interesting conversation... or would it be the
Demon hunter forum
?
To make the forum better at this point I'm a strong proponent of the idea that consolidation is required, not expansion. The fact of the matter, though, is that making any changes to the forum takes resources and while it ain't broke, resources are difficult for anyone to be willing to spend on fixing it.
I strongly agree. I get there's generally a lot of features on the radar for Wowhead, but an implied lack of consideration is upsetting, to say the least. It gives a feeling that feedback/criticism falls on deaf ears.
/sigh
Really?
Initially Thror made a one line request and I responded. If his disappointment was in how well he was "officially" heard then it is misplaced. His disappointment ought to be in how little his idea was able to gain traction in the community. I submit that it gained precisely as much traction as it was due.(##RESPBREAK##)16##DELIM##asakawa##DELIM##
Post by
Thror
To make the forum better at this point I'm a strong proponent of the idea that consolidation is required, not expansion. The fact of the matter, though, is that making any changes to the forum takes resources and while it ain't broke, resources are difficult for anyone to be willing to spend on fixing it.
As of now, discussion of Pet Battles on Wowhead is fragmented between pet battle guide comments, individual wowhead databse pages for pets and pet battle related NPC's, occasional News posts that regard pet battle changes, and rare General forum topics. Creating a forum section about Pet Battles, in my eyes, would be consolidation.
Meanwhile we can see that, while you and Thror both want a Pet Battle forum, neither of you has ever made a thread discussing Pet Battles. And that is my point in a nutshell. To be worth discussing there needs to be a clear trend of more and more threads being made and the clear notion that there's a community in existence surrounding the topic that needs its own home in order to grow further and flourish. We haven't seen anything even close to that in 2012, 2014 or now. If we made a forum would it be a busy hive of interesting conversation... or would it be the
Demon hunter forum
?
I just went and discussed pet battles elsewhere. The Pet Battle forums on the official forums are always buzzing with activity.
Post by
asakawa
I just went and discussed pet battles elsewhere. The Pet Battle forums on the official forums are always buzzing with activity.
There's plenty of discussion regarding Demon Hunters going on in the official forums and reddit, yet our own class forum is utterly bereft of content. Wowhead's forum is its own entity and it is a mistake to imagine that what works in one place will automatically work in another.
If a Pet Battle forum were made, do you imagine that it would have a single full page of threads after 1 year? The Monk forum, after 4 years, has barely 4 pages. Over-fragmentation is death to communities and Wowhead's forum simply isn't what it was in 2009. Imagining it is not so helps nobody.
Post by
Interest
Well, first of all, that was just me talking; giving my honest opinion.
He wasn't dismissed
, he was heard, understood and disagreed with. (By me.
I didn't discuss it with anyone else
).
Again, I know the team is busy, but making a sole judgement call of that sort falls pretty well under what being dismissive is. A disagreement would be if you stated that, then took it up with other folks who probably have more weight as to whether such a board is a good idea.
I still disagree, and the intervening years only make my objection to the idea all the stronger. For the same reason I mentioned. Splintering discussion is a benefit when the discussion of a single topic is actively hindering or confusing all other discussion. Before that point it serves nobody and only hides the discussions that are taking place from lots of people who would enjoy taking part.
So a board solely designed to discuss Pet Battle-related concepts (which in themselves have plenty of subcategories) would splinter and hide topics related to Pet Battle discussion? I get there has to be a limit as to how fragmented the forum gets but considering the specificity of Pet Battles in World of Warcraft to the point they were a major feature of Mists of Pandaria that has been updated since, I'd argue that people would benefit from being able to find Pet Battle topics on a specific board instead of sieving through WoW General, which has loads of clutter.
Meanwhile we can see that, while you and Thror both want a Pet Battle forum, neither of you has ever made a thread discussing Pet Battles.
Personally, I'm generally not too big on making threads at all. It's not so much a lack of desire to so much as my style preferring towards posting in existing threads over creating new ones. This is also reflected elsewhere to varying degrees. I would even argue my thread-creating activity has lessened further since I post a lot of things to my blog. In addition, Pet Battles are more of an activity of intrigue to me (hence the lack of blog posts on Pet Battles - I have other things I want to write about). Yet I partake in them heavily enough to have to look up guides and discuss tactics with some others like Problim or Thror.
And that is my point in a nutshell. To be worth discussing there needs to be a clear trend of more and more threads being made and the clear notion that there's a community in existence surrounding the topic that needs its own home in order to grow further and flourish. We haven't seen anything even close to that in 2012, 2014 or now. If we made a forum would it be a busy hive of interesting conversation... or would it be the Demon hunter forum?
It appears the trends exist, but not necessarily on this forum itself. It is clear there is a demand for discussion and other Pet Battle-related things.
As for the Demon Hunter board, I suspect it will pick up when more people play the class and know what it does. Legion's still in Alpha. Heck, I'd go as far as to say one would need to wait until release day or afterwards to see the activity pick up, considering the general lull of WoW-related activity that late-stage expansion (especially one that is considered disappointing) brings, along with other factors such as various game releases further providing players with reason to take a break from all things WoW (like Fallout 4, for example)
That's like saying a Pet Battle board will fail because Pet Battles are only in Alpha Legion at present (among other things), yet that's not the case at all.
To make the forum better at this point I'm a strong proponent of the idea that consolidation is required, not expansion. The fact of the matter, though, is that making any changes to the forum takes resources and while it ain't broke, resources are difficult for anyone to be willing to spend on fixing it.
To some point, I agree (the non-Hearthstone other game boards are pretty much nonexistent activity-wise and probably serve better on the main ZAM site or somewhere that discusses those IP instead of being tacked onto a forum largely dedicated to discussing Warcraft IP). However, at the same time, there's some reason behind creating some new boards to better sort out topics of specific types, as to make the foruming experience friendlier for both new and old (not just talking about that one suggestion I made).
I have to ask how much you would want to consolidate and how user-friendly it would be. The forum isn't r/wow, which in itself isn't exactly hyper-consolidated either (loads of branching subreddits, new content and highly upvoted content wins out and threads get buried very frequently due to how Reddit works, layout makes it a lot easier to view all the topics, etc).
Also, the forums at this point seem quaternary compared to other features on Wowhead, down from being secondary (news articles, the database which it was secondary to, and guides). That issue seems far more pertinent to address. if the forum isn't visited a lot now, it's not going to help to consolidate and inevitably not have many visits anyways because of the other major site features that are more accessible to the average user, guest or existing.
I submit that it gained precisely as much traction as it was due.
Aside from the remarks made above on how Pet Battle discussion and such exists elsewhere, mostly off these forums, this board doesn't exactly gain a lot of traction on most topics in general. It's pretty inactive considering thread view numbers vs time created. I'd say it's more of a consequence of this board being dead than anything else.
Post by
asakawa
Well, first of all, that was just me talking; giving my honest opinion.
He wasn't dismissed
, he was heard, understood and disagreed with. (By me.
I didn't discuss it with anyone else
).
Again, I know the team is busy, but making a sole judgement call of that sort falls pretty well under what being dismissive is. A disagreement would be if you stated that, then took it up with other folks who probably have more weight as to whether such a board is a good idea.
I'm not sure what influence you think I have but I didn't make any kind of call, sole or otherwise. I gave my opinion then closed the thread and didn't (it seems) return until now. I have very strong opinions about how the community on this site can best be served and I give them (vociferously - I'm quite the nuisance). However, decisions on these matters are WAY above my (non-existent) pay-grade so an opinion based on my experience and intuition is all I can give and all anyone in this thread has received.
I think what is being requested is not in the best interests of the site and
my guess
would be that mere fact that there isn't a clear and sizeable benefit almost certainly takes it off the list of things worth dev-hours. So, simply from experience I would advise it best to keep expectations quite low.
In all honesty the rest of your post makes little sense to me. You're essentially saying "If you build it they will come" and I don't see any evidence to suggest that this view has merit. What I said in 2012 and still believe now is that there is a place for those threads right now and seeing some evidence of a fledgeling community of Pet-Battle enthusiasts growing there would go a long way to back up your position. Start posting pet-battle stuff, I'm encouraging you to do so. Another empty ghost-town forum on this site helps nobody.
Post by
Interest
I'm not sure what influence you think I have but I didn't make any kind of call, sole or otherwise.
It's a strongly implied one. While I'm sure other higher-ups may have taken a glance at this point, you did, made a response (which others supposedly looking at the thread didn't do), then didn't communicate it to the team, decreasing the chance of them knowing there's any sort of suggestion for a Pet Battle forum.
I have very strong opinions about how the community on this site can best be served and I give them (vociferously - I'm quite the nuisance). However, decisions on these matters are WAY above my (non-existent) pay-grade so an opinion based on my experience and intuition is all I can give and all anyone in this thread has received.
Which is fine, but it would've been nice if you discussed it among other folks who at least have some power (other mods, developers, etc) to temper the opinion.
I don't see any evidence to suggest that this view has merit.
Thror posted a good amount of evidence, and I mentioned that looking up pretty much any Pet Battle NPC on the database will yield indications of not only high traffic, but potential for discussion. The forums haven't exactly been active relative to guide viewing and database browsing, as I mentioned when I stated the forums have effectively been made quaternary (and thus essentially put on the back burner) compared to other features.
However, if you want more evidence, I looked up "Pet Battle" then checked WoW General only and found the following:
http://www.wowhead.com/forums&post=3848318
http://www.wowhead.com/forums&post=3794148
http://www.wowhead.com/forums&post=3290235
http://www.wowhead.com/forums&topic=247289.1#p3830861
http://www.wowhead.com/forums&topic=245230.1#p3803681
(Some older ones - some with semi-recent posts, at least given how active the forum is as a whole)
http://www.wowhead.com/forums&post=3387702
http://www.wowhead.com/forums&topic=207816.2#p3678631
http://www.wowhead.com/forums&post=3666095
http://www.wowhead.com/forums&post=3481707
And there's plenty more beyond that.
Another empty ghost-town forum on this site helps nobody.
I think we both agree on this one. Heck, I even agree that overfragmentation of boards can be bad and I've seen that kill at least parts of a forum (specifically only parts, not the entire forum), but there's ways to address this (sub-boards to primary boards, etc) and atm we don't exactly have a ridiculous amount of boards. If anything, we have very few compared to quite a lot of more active forums. Once we get to something rather crazy like 30+ (main) boards, then the overfragmentation theory might have more merit. As I said before, it's clear there's far more to the issue than that.
Edit: To clarify (and repeat what I said above - I tend to do this a lot), a consolidated forum/boards that's still largely self-contained due to a lack of relative visibility on the front page and elsewhere, thus reducing general traction, among other factors, is still going to be rather inactive overall.
Edit 2: This does bring up an interesting topic on how to "fix" the forum though. Maybe time for another topic? It would help to have it somewhere where there's more eyes though.
Post by
asakawa
Well, I remain decidedly unconvinced by your arguments.
Further to that though, I think that this proposition is so unnecessary (and in fact, in my mind it would actually
contribute
to the forum's decline) that it's entirely unworthy of the amount of discussion it has already received. It really feels to me more like it has become a subject to debate rather than an idea that you're personally especially passionate about—I return to the lack of actual threads from you or the OP on the subject.
Anything more I would say on the topic would be entirely circular at this point so I guess I'm done but good luck making a greater impression on others.
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