[Exploration] Blizzard MVP Program

Sir ArmaMalum·Aug 29, 2014·13 votes·7,223 views

I'm a gamer. And as a gamer I play many more games than just League, as well as many more forums than just League's. So I'm going to highlight some features of other gaming forums that I thought were brilliant. I'm not saying "Put this in, Rito Plz!", but exploring how different developers handled the problems presented in a forum platform can not only be a good exercise, but can be excellent springboards to other ideas.

Here it is as explained by Blizzard Community manager Zarhym:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4038704715

I thought the origin of the program was fairly interesting

Q. Why was the MVP Program created?

A. In many cases, the answers to questions posed on the forums have already been provided by Blizzard Entertainment employees, or are common knowledge for many in the community. However, answers by fellow players often go unnoticed while the original poster seeks a more official response.

In summary MVP's get:

Green text to all their posts, across all forums
A "direct line of contact with Blizzard Community Managers"

that's all, that's it. No moderation powers, no fancy tools, just colored text to signify that they have a good chance of knowing what they're talking about and that they've been chosen for bringing in a constructive voice to the forums.

To quote Zarhym:

Those chosen for the program aren’t official representatives of Blizzard, and they don’t have to agree with every decision we make. They also aren’t expected to give up their posting personas in order to join. Our goal is to find frequent posters who are a positive influence on the gaming community in some form, whether it be through posting strategy guides or tips on various aspects of gameplay, or even just bringing a positive and constructive tone to the forums when socializing with their peers.

I thought this was an interestingly simple method of dealing with the ridiculous employee:player ratios titans like Blizzard contest with everyday.

What do you guys think about this idea? Do we have any Blizzard MVP's in here?

Anyone else who has frequented the Blizzard forums regularly have an opinion on this system they wish to share?

Edit: Any true veterans here to share opinions on emissaries from vBulletin?

16 Comments

ChickenWrapAug 29, 20145 votes

The interesting thing with this is that the boards are still so small that most people know who the ones who provide the most/best feedback and such are. This would be a great addition though IMO, if the boards picked up most in popularity.

Rito plz!

DaenAug 29, 20142 votes

Riot actually has a player volunteer group like this MVP program; it's called Emissaries of the League. Just so happens it is completely unsupported.

Sir ArmaMalumAug 29, 20142 votes

Yeah I was hoping to circle back to that, do you know if there's been a discussion on exactly why the support fell through? I know the beta team hasn't specifically said no to bringing in a similar system but not jumping at the idea either.

DaenAug 29, 20142 votes

I'm not sure. I did research on the volunteer groups about a year ago and at the time it was mentioned to me that they hadn't been supported for a couple of years from that point.

My assumption is that Riot's not sure what to do with them and has more important projects to be working on, but don't quote me on that.

Sir ArmaMalumAug 29, 20141 votes

And with enough iterations of the teams working on the forum side of things it's even possible that most current reds don't know why, lol.

This is just making me more curious at this point. XD

TamatAug 30, 20145 votes

Volunteer groups like Emissaries haven't been supported very well. Our only active volunteer program that is still ongoing is the Wrenchmen & Huntsmen, and we want to do a lot more to support them in the Boards. Having said that, I've been working on a smaller scale plan to introduce some new programs for the Boards. Ideally, these programs would exist to represent or serve the community, and will be full of players that are elected by you guys in the Boards. Nothing official yet, just sharing some stuff floating around in my head.

DaenAug 30, 20141 votes

Would these programs eclipse the current volunteer groups, or include them?

Also, I might be speaking outside of my bounds but I personally (and potentially others) would love to help with brainstorming on that if that's a possibility.

RysterAug 30, 20142 votes

full of players that are elected by you guys in the Boards.

Are you sure the boards electing these people are the best idea? I mean the boards are filled with nicer and respectable people compared to GD, but that doesn't really stop GDers from coming here to vote for their favorite GD 'troll' to act as support for other players.

I don't mean to be rude to anyone specific, but I just hope there will be some screening by Riot to make sure these people follow the rules and act with respect towards all.

Otherwise, can't wait. Sounds like a good idea.

TrollerAug 31, 20141 votes

Volunteer groups like Emissaries haven't been supported very well. Our only active volunteer program that is still ongoing is the Wrenchmen & Huntsmen, and we want to do a lot more to support them in the Boards. Having said that, I've been working on a smaller scale plan to introduce some new programs for the Boards. Ideally, these programs would exist to represent or serve the community, and will be full of players that are elected by you guys in the Boards. Nothing official yet, just sharing some stuff floating around in my head.

Taric truly outrageous, i suggest the board shouldn't choose.

Dragon Fang ShotAug 29, 20141 votes

How long has this existed, and why did it fall out of community support? I've been here for a year and a few months and have never heard of it.

DaenAug 29, 20142 votes

Since beta, as far as I'm aware. Here are the current player volunteer groups:

Adjudicators: Beta testers, blue border
Emissaries of the League: Helpful players that frequented Help & Support, green border
Huntsmen: Helpful players in the PBE forums, teal border
Council: High ELO players in S1 & earlier, purple border
Wrenchmen: Helpful players with technical knowledge, yellow/orange border

I hope I'm not missing any. Wrenchmen and Huntsmen are still supported as they provide a legitimately valuable service to Riot. The others not so much.

why did it fall out of community support?

Not community support. Riot support.

Dragon Fang ShotAug 29, 20141 votes

Sucks that Riot let it go, this looks like a really nice system.

LissannaAug 29, 20142 votes

Blizzard MVPs were originally primarily support forum posters. They helped with the Customer Support and Technical Support forums. It has only been in more recent years that Blizzard opened the MVP program up to non-support forum posters (such as myself). In general, the WOW player base has a lot of misunderstandings of what MVPs are, which makes the program difficult sometimes for the people involved. The Blizzard MVP program also goes through time periods where the MVPS may end up with less support (apparently much like it seems the Emmisaries of the League program is for Riot).

Having green text on the WOW forums is as much of a curse as it is a benefit, since it makes you a potential target for people's anger if there aren't enough Blizzard posters around. Thus, volunteer programs can have the drawback of making people targets for trolling without actually giving the volunteers any powers to combat that trolling. I think that it definitely has benefits in some respects, and I like having more direct communication with the community managers at Blizzard, but the programs can be really tough for companies to do well. If Riot's forum community is still small enough that most people recognize good posters, you may not need people to have a giant sign on their back to spur good conversations.

It's possible that this new Board style with up-voting might make MVPs unnecessary to direct good conversations.

DaenAug 29, 20141 votes

I'm going to split some of the points you make into two categories:

Community Problems

Potentially targeting MVPs
No ability to combat trolling even if it's targeted at you

Blizzard Problems

Not properly explaining the MVP system
Not properly supporting the MVP system

Does this sound somewhat accurate?

LissannaAug 29, 20141 votes

Those are more or less the problems that could arise from a volunteer community that is given a special status on any game forums. Those are all problems that are near impossible to really solve for any community. As you can see from the original post, the MVP sticky that explains the system does a great job of explaining how the program works - but most forum posters don't read the notices. So, the problem of explaining the MVP system is as much of a problem of the community not taking the time to learn about the system.

I like and support Blizzard's system, and even with the problems the program has, I don't regret my decision to join the program. There are positives (some of which I can't really talk about) that make the program worth it for me.

Giving MVPs moderation powers would be pretty much the worst solution to any of the problems, since volunteer moderators have been really hit-or-miss in the video game forum communities that have tried them. So, it comes down to a problem of what role a Riot Volunteer MVP-type system would play in the community, and whether that's a role that the LOL forums and community at large would even benefit from. It seems like Riot had a system that was a volunteer MVP-type system that they stopped supporting, so it might be interesting to explore why that system ultimately fell out of support and whether it would be a system worth reviving.

MrBuffingtonAug 30, 20141 votes

Reminds me of the leaderboard for posts that a Rioter (I forget who, sorry!) posted on boards, it got sort of mixed reception if I remember, which I assume is why they didn't continue with it. Something like this might bring more legitimacy to good creators/posters, instead of just popular opinions. I know one or two people I would nominate for this :)