Class Forum Change - Worldofwarcraft.com

[Temig]

Thanks to mero12513 for pointing this out - it looks like Blizzard has decided to step in a new direction with their Class forum structure and has introduced role-based forums for us to hold discussions in. Can Warriors and P******ns co-exist in the world outside of TankSpot? Only time will tell.

With the upcoming release of Wrath of the Lich King and the many changes the expansion brings to classes and mechanics, we have decided to rearrange our forums to make it easier for players to hold constructive discussions. To that end, we have created three role-based forums -- Tanking, Damage Dealing, and Healing -- in place of the class forums. Why?

Common ground for common roles. The new structure provides central places for players of diverse classes and specs to discuss their common roles. Until now, there was no one obvious forum for a holy paladin to discuss Arena healing tactics with a restoration shaman, or for a protection warrior to talk tanking mechanics with a feral druid. This often led to splintered, fractured, and redundant discussions. In addition, the original class forum structure never properly took the impact of talents into account, lumping together a shadow priest and a holy priest (for example) when that didn’t necessarily make sense.

Celebrate diversity! While a tank tanks and a healer heals, the specific ways each class and talent build go about these roles are very distinct -- and the addition of new abilities in Wrath of the Lich King will continue to add even more ways to play. The new forum structure will still be a place for a frost mage (for example) to discuss tricks of the trade with other frost mages, while at the same time facilitating an understanding of the unique tools that rogues or other damage-dealers have to perform similar functions.

Help us help you. The new forums will also allow the community team and developers to follow discussions and gather feedback more effectively as the game continues to evolve -- which, ultimately, translates to a better World of Warcraft for you.

The current individual class forums will be active until Thursday, November 6. On that date, we will be removing the individual class forums. You can begin using the new forums immediately at the links below:

Tanking- World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Tanking

Healing- World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Healing

Damage Dealing- World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Damage Dealing

[Warwench]

the tank forums will be a hoot but the "Damage Dealing" forums will be the most fun. Huntards, Rogues, Mages, Warlocks all discussing stuff together?..

lol funtimes ahead., can't wait to see the upteen billion stickies per forum.

[Krenian]

I either foresee two things.

a) Blizzard actually pulls this off and that they'll get constructive criticism for everyone to help each other out...or....

b) Flame wars upon flame wars about how certain classes do more than other classes.

Guess which one I'm going to go with! (The latter, naturally)

[Urrick]

Thats not going to end well unless they heavily moderate it.

[Widdox]

I like the fact that they are trying, but it going to be interesting.

[Kylja]

Thats not going to end well unless they heavily moderate it.

I'd be willing to bet this is so they have an easier time allocating CMs to moderate the forums. Instead of having each and every class forum having a CM or a CM having several class forums, they can just have a couple CMs per Role Forum.

I still don't think it'll end well. We shall see!

[Satrina]

I am certain they will be bastions of intelligent discussion and information exchange.

[Lore]

They'll be absolutely retarded at first but I think they'll end up being better over time. Honest posters (ie: not the ones who are just trying to troll) tend to be less likely to make ridiculous claims about someone else's class if they think someone from the other class might read it and correct them.

Plus, having it all in the same forum means everyone learns more about each other's class.

[Eblan]

I don't think heavy moderation will save those forums. It won't take long before the elitism permeates from the other discussion forums to them.

[Meeks]

I can not see this ending well or constructively. Also is a mess for hybrids trying to find information about their class. I see what they are trying to accomplish and why but I don't think I agree with their approach.

[Lore]

Elitists tend to shut up when they're repeatedly proven wrong.

Like I said, I imagine there will be a lot of absolutely horrid posts at first ("Why ____ is overpowered" etc) but the arguments that come up will force a measure of understanding of other classes into the discussion.

As a more personal example, I thought changing heroic strike to scale with weapon speed would have been a GREAT change until I came over here and asked the Warriors about it. Turns out it wouldn't have been so hot after all.

There will always be trolls. There's nothing you can do about that. If anything, this makes keeping an eye on the trolls easier since you've only got 3 forums to watch instead of 10.

[veneretio]

It's about time they did it. It'll be just as ugly as everything else, but at least we'll know where to look for the right kind of ugly.

[Lore]

I can not see this ending well or constructively. Also is a mess for hybrids trying to find information about their class. I see what they are trying to accomplish and why but I don't think I agree with their approach.

I actually think it's easier for hybrids to find the appropriate information this way. If I want tanking information, I go to the tanking forums.

Also remember that there's a LOT of overlap between classes. Yeah, there's some class-specific stuff ("how good is Reckoning?") that will just be ignored by the other tanks, but that's just the same as having the other specs of your class ignoring it in the class forums. But questions like "how do I tank the boss" or "how much defense do I need" don't require an answer from someone of the same class.

[Krenian]

The problem is Lore that people come here with the idea of having people who actually are seriously figuring stuff out and not spouting crap out of nowhere.

EVERYONE on the WoW forums knows that there's going to be a majority of posters being nothing more than idiots and morons that give no information other than QQ MOAR N00B!!?!111!!

It's not going to be possible. Especially not a forum in which it allows every member of their game to log on and post whatever they want. We've seen trolls be pretty damn bad on most forums. I haven't really seen that many if ever any trolls here on TS. It's just not going to work, in my opinion. Only because of the dynamics, however.

[Honorshammer]

It's strange but Trolling seems much less tolerated on TS and MT forums, and you tend to be get better discussion on those forums. I have no idea why.

[Warwench]

Plus, having it all in the same forum means everyone learns more about each other's class.

you know, that might be a pus to this.. far too many people hold totally skewed misconceptions about other classes that perform the same role.. classic "grass is greener" syndrome.

[Bloodwraith]

I wish they'd allow this and the class forums. Seems like a silly way to just through random classes into the mix with each other with no other option.

[Lore]

Well, let me give a little insight from my experiences at Maintankadin. Maintankadin has a little different community style than Tankspot (and not just because they're all Paladins). There's simply a lot more post volume; Tankspot has Shoutbox and a very well-organized forum layout (as well as superior forum software). With no Shoutbox to pick up the "chat" posts, and information occasionally hard to find, there's just a ton of posts. A lot of them need to be moderated (especially the repeat questions etc).

I give this example not to try and QQ about OMG MAINTANKADIN IS HARD but instead to put some perspective on my next sentence: Keeping track of 5,00 posts in one forum is a lot easier than keeping track of 50 posts in 10 forums. The biggest reason is that forums tend to filter themselves a bit. "Hot" topics tend to stay near the top, so it's easier to catch the troll/flamewar threads (as well as keep an eye on the more productive ones).

The tradeoff is that if there's TOO much traffic, truly useful posts tend to get pushed off the first page in a hurry. But since WoW General still sees plenty more traffic than the Tanking, DPS, and Healing forums are likely to ever see, and good posts there still tend to float towards the top, I'm not too concerned.

[Lore]

I wish they'd allow this and the class forums. Seems like a silly way to just through random classes into the mix with each other with no other option.

They did mention later in the original post that part of why they're waiting a week to get rid of the class forums is they're still deciding whether or not to actually get rid of them.

[Kyoki]

I think this will be a complete disaster

The reason it works on tankspot and other websites similiar to it is because its a much smaller community and trolling really isnt accepted. On the wow forums its basically 95% crap. Now if you want to say look up something on an arms spec you have to browse through 5 pages of junk instead of 1 page.


For hybrids or people who constantly change between two specs its even worse. Before i could just go to the warrior forums and find helpfull advise on any spec. Now i have to go to the dps forums will most likely have to deal with 10 pages of qq moar posts.