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[Exploration] Blizzard MVP Program

Sir ArmaMalum·8/29/2014, 3:39:23 PM·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

ChickenWrap8/29/2014, 4:41:29 PM5 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!

Daen8/29/2014, 5:06:55 PM2 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.

Lissanna8/29/2014, 7:20:51 PM2 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.

MrBuffington8/30/2014, 2:22:20 PM1 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 :)