Honestly, I thought it was a positive thing until I started to read the contract and then the only positive thing about it was my laughter at how red flaggy the whole thing is!
However, if discord communities want to sign up it is their choice and I hope everyone (myself included) is reading it wrong.
itâs time to take those rose colored glasses off buddy. yes having some sort of agreement is necessary for these kind of things but people are right about their concerns. you donât have to defend every blizz move either. theyâre open to criticism.
My response was to it being an indication that blizz is in trouble thatâs why they are doing this initiative. That the game is dying. To some every little thing that Blizz does is a sign of itâs death.
I do think that the concerns about the contract are valid or that people donât understand the legalese involved. But thatâs not what I was responding too. Maybe I should include the quotes.
Yeah the contract is a whole different thing!
I donât think that people donât understand the legal implications that are presented, it is pretty clear.
Just the reasoning behind it is hard to view in a positive way.
Fact is: The discords worked well without Blizzard, they donât really need someone who tries to get an influence on what is allowed to be said and what not and it kinda contradicts the statement they make about the server owners staying in full control of their servers. I am not in control of my server when I need to install a bot where, by now, we donât even properly know which purpose it has, be it announcement wise or in terms of data gathering.
It is a great idea for Blizzard getting involved in the communities, I am sure many discords would like to have a Q&A with devs or the chance to bring up ideas in a dialogue; just this form of dialogue doesnât treat the contractors as equals.
imo this idea is plainly stupid. and attempt to get as much data as possible.
what they should have done years is hire couple of dozens of people and make in game blizzard managed guilds, tied to discord - guilds were guild leaders / officers paid by blizz would organize stuff for those communities and all communitites on servers to participate. with GMs on payroll and reporting to blizz so they are evaluated if they do stuff correctly .
its pretty obvious blizzard hates the idea that with their severe cenzorship in game most of players interactions moved to discord where they cannot get in game ban for 8748923749827 stupid reasons.
Not even sure it is that. I have more the feeling it is the development they take for some time now: Trying to get in touch with their customers.
A first step in that direction had been the Community Council and things we as players wished for really came into the game; I see that as a positive development (not that I 100% agree with how it was handled).
The involvement in servers could be another step, but not at those conditions.
As a former manager of a 300 people WoW discord and friend of 2 former EU CM colleagues: not in a million years.
Probs is still in pilot phase and if works they could consider rolling this out further. Though by some of the comments it looks like the program may be shut down before it even starts. Ima sit on the sidelines and watch how it plays out.
yeah and i though about legal side , since they had to put so many legal stuff they probably only bothered with eu laws
Pretty sure people have made negative comments on the forums before now, so according to this EULA, anyone who becomes a âprogram memberâ can say less on their own discord than they can on the forums?
This is a meme right?
That contract is sketchy to say the least.
Who would participate in such a thing? What?
im more curious how they plan to go around so many of EU laws . i get that it can stand in US but they try to do it in EU ? good luck paying huge fines for this 
They are trying to get closer to communities, such a lovely and heartwarming attempt.
Remember it is not only the admin that signs it that is affected, he also got to make sure the whole discord as an organised unit adheres to those rules. As any content created on the server he âownsâ must be by these new rules. Content on a discord server is everything on it.
This includes mods, bots and all that jazz. Then they must try to enforce the rules upon the discord members and make the community take the stance blizzard wants, is all wrapped in this neat package. So expect kicks, bans and stricter tightening of opinions. Someone gets too much traction on something negative? Well, blizz will do the call for all their partners to ban that person from their sphere of influence.
It is very out of touch from what a discord community is. But, as I stated before, it is probably just the legal department that doesnât know what the heck this âdiscordâ thing is and tries to cower all bases (as is their job). So it comes out like a blizz is bringing nuclear weapons into a kindergarden going: âOk, so I will participate maybe once a month on the swings, but as I do - if you kids make my feet dirty - I will use this nuke, get me? Good.â
Will they go nuclear on kids? No. EU/Country law will stop them from doing that. But can we really trust they wont bring the attention to the nuke over and over, to enforce their stance? Then sure, they might not nuke you - but they will do their best to use this contract to legally spike your tea with uranium. Worst case, they will radiation poison you and take the bet that you wont have the money or influence to do anything about it before it is too late.
Blizzard as a company here shouldâve gone with an open hand approach - in good faith. Not whatever this is. Probably should gone for a more loose contract and aim for positive publicity at cost of risk. Hype us up, make us excited for these things to come into our discord communities - not make many dread the death of their favourite WoW discord servers.
Companies shouldâve learned that we donât trust them by now. We trust in the community managers and employees of the company. So if they said, we just want to make sure some basic checks are done for us to openly be direct contact with you guys - that would be fine. I stress basic, not legal-basic, standard human interaction basics.
There are already devs on servers that are more or less open about it. That is what you should aim for, being one with the community. Not, being a cold-iron stake into the heart of the community.
The founder of Acherus made a pretty good statement regarding it.
Iâm happy they decided to not join.
Respectfully, what the hell is wrong with you?
âThe Program Member shall not make any disparaging or negative statements or representations, written or oral, about Blizzard (including any affiliate) or Blizzard (including any affiliate)âs products or services, and/or the services rendered by the Program Member hereunder, except as otherwise permitted by law.
The foregoing shall not limit the Program Memberâs ability to make truthful statements if compelled by court order, legal proceeding, or otherwise required by applicable law. This provision shall survive the expiration or termination of this Agreement.â
Itâs a no from me.
Their approach to running a business is why they are in trouble. This initiative isnât the soultion to the problem, itâs an example of the problem.