Today in WoW: Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2011

Player feedback is an essential part of our development process, but this kind of thread helps illustrate the value and the pitfalls of anecdotal feedback.

What makes it useful? It's personal and emotional. It tells us about what it feels like to play World of Warcraft from an individual's perspective, where the big picture might seem pretty remote and unimportant.

The pitfall? It's personal and emotional, which is good, but very subjective. It's a tiny (though important) sample when compared against the whole of every battleground game happening everywhere. We have a duty to objectively look at the big picture. For example, our stats tell us that the ratios for various battlegrounds are pretty close to 50% win/loss for each faction, though that might not matter much to you when you're in the heat of the action.

So, when we're looking at what a quest feels like anecdotally, if it's too frustrating, then we can probably adjust that. When it comes to a system like the Battlegrounds, where the dynamic is almost exclusively player driven, but is working really well, it's not a good idea to mess with it because the big picture looks great.

Speaking personally, I've found that my mindset plays a huge role in how much fun I'm having. In the midst of a losing streak, I try to remember my winning streaks and landslide wins, or I adopt a philosophical approach and do what I can, where I can. If I get too frustrated, I do a different, more relaxing in-game activity for awhile or step away entirely. My bottom line is that how I think and feel about what I'm doing in-game can mean the difference between having a great time (even if I'm on a losing team), and table-flipping frustration.

As we've said elsewhere, battlegrounds require a ton of effort to create, and modifying them even slightly is extremely labor intensive. It will probably be more worthwhile to create new and better battlegrounds in the future, than go back to continually tweak and modify the old ones.

We've updated our Trading Card Game art gallery to feature ten new pieces. Each image is taken directly from the official World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. Be sure to give a shout-out to your favorite pieces in the comments.