Celestalon: "streaming interferes with the feedback process"

[Celarent]

Like it or not, Blizzard respond to e celebrities wayyy more than anyone else.

Post-Street, they've been surrounding themselves with fansite writers and soft-criticism theorycrafters, both of whom are happy for the chance to be internet buddies.

[KrazyK923]

Post-Street, they've been surrounding themselves with fansite writers and soft-criticism theorycrafters, both of whom are happy for the chance to be internet buddies.

Truer words haven't been spoken...at least in a few hours.

They've basically created an echo chamber for themselves by choosing a few specific community members and elevate them to a higher tier than everyone else. People who just white knight everything they do and rarely, if ever, criticize anything they ever put out. Even for the lore.

[Mizix]

...I never said "All streamers" as in "everyone who streams." I didn't think it was this hard to understand basic grammar.

"All" in this case meant "the only thing" they do. Which was blatantly clear if you two bothered to actually try to read what I said rather than jump on a perceived misstatement.

My bad, I did read that wrong indeed. Spare me the attitude though because I don't have anything personal against you or anyone else on this forum, nor am I trying to score a gotcha or forward my own biased interpretation. It happens to be mistaken, you know? No need to be so defensive

And to be honest, it didn't even cross my mind that him taking a stand against bad streamers might be disrespectful to good streamers. I don't disagree with you that he could have elaborated a bit more, not entirely sure it is necessary though, since he was not generalizing in the first place. In other words, I don't see why him not saying positive things about good streamers would make any difference to the point he was making about bad streamers.

[KrazyK923]

My bad, I did read that wrong indeed. Spare me the attitude though because I don't have anything personal against you or anyone else on this forum, nor am I trying to score a gotcha or forward my own biased interpretation. It happens to be mistaken, you know? No need to be so defensive

I wasn't referring to you with those comments, just fyi. Just that the person you quoted has, I think, a hate boner for me. Which makes me laugh every time he skips every comment in the thread to go after me.

And to be honest, it didn't even cross my mind that him taking a stand against bad streamers might be disrespectful to good streamers. I don't disagree with you that he could have elaborated a bit more, not entirely sure it is necessary though, since he was not generalizing in the first place. In other words, I don't see why him not saying positive things about good streamers would make any difference to the point he was making about bad streamers.

Just to provide a contrast where streamers or youtubers did the opposite. Helped shape the game by exposing a problem they've had. It's happened before, I know it, although no example comes to mind immediately. It's also a symptom of them closing ranks and really not commenting in too many places online anymore. For over 5 years we had an amazing amount of unfettered access to developer's thoughts and how the game was shaping up during creation and now that's all but gone. At best we have a WarcraftDevs twitter that makes vague statements and occasionally Kosak or Afrasiabi will tweet something about the lore that pisses people off.

[Sanguinerd]

Serves em right for giving those idiots preferable treatment.

[Girrag]

That's why you shouldn't let random people into alpha and beta versions.

[Celarent]

People who just white knight everything they do and rarely, if ever, criticize anything they ever put out. Even for the lore.

Exactly. I guess they figured soapbox-style streamers would cash in their audiences for a VIP pass arriving someday, someday, someday in the mail?

What gets me is that so much feedback has been too-notch. Not angry dudes popping off, or biased lobbyers with no perspective: thoughtful, constructive reviews intended to improve the game.

[Kyanion]

That's why you shouldn't let random people into alpha and beta versions.

*raises eyebrow* Picking streamers for alpha access wasn't random.

[Ringthane]

Not much sympathy from me,you reap what you sow if your "testers" are mainly comprised of twitchtards who are only concerned with their viewer counts and $$$

Basically this. I said the same thing one or two expansions ago and everyone jumped on me for it. Sometimes people just need to shut up and look at what's really right in front of their faces.

[Mafic]

Since people are bringing up specific youtubers/streamers I feel that I have to voice disagreement:

HeelsvsBabyface: He was originally in favor of removing flying from the game and reversed his decision over time as he saw it didn't improve the game. The reason why his content is "negative" is because he is pointing out that we are in a gameplay content drought that Blizz created and they ignored a lot of feedback in WoD beta and are in danger of doing the same with Legion.

Preach: He has spent enormous amount of time pointing out that they are bringing back passive talents that you do not:

1. Notice or change your game play in anyway
2. Have to take to reach other desired game changing talents ala old talent trees with the artifact talent trees.

He has also pointed out a spec like Legion Demo talents are well designed while a Fire Mage is dumbed down to the core in Legion. He is 100% correct I believe. How is that "negative"?

CDEW: CDEW is pointing out that the loss of utility is causing PVP to be a damage tunneling fest and that is true. The impact of loss of utility is also impacting how the specs play outside and in a raid environment. Taunt is back to being a class wide ability thanks to the feedback that pruning took away too much utility.

Bellular: He has pointed out the pros and cons of the new mob scaling tech and also concerns with only four leveling zones.

In short, the major streamers and youtubers are not the problem. The problem is Blizz dragged their feet with the development of Legion and did little content production for WoD. They need to look in the mirror.

The rest of the major streamers haven't voiced "negative" feedback and actually are testing the game. Bajheera, Pshero, etc are always submitting bug reports live on their streams respectively and even Swifty.

So laying the blame game at the feet of streamers and youtubers is the easy way out. But once Legion is released to the masses and it stays as it is the "negative" feedback will only grow.

[KrazyK923]

Exactly. I guess they figured soapbox-style streamers would cash in their audiences for a VIP pass arriving someday, someday, someday in the mail?

What gets me is that so much feedback has been too-notch. Not angry dudes popping off, or biased lobbyers with no perspective: thoughtful, constructive reviews intended to improve the game.

Blizzard has been always horrible at taking feedback they don't feel is valid. Even if it very much is. Granted they got rid of a lot of the stuff that made WoD bad, but they still seem insistent upon keeping some kind of base version of the Garrison Follower system. It is better in a lot of ways, but I think they saw people suggesting they just scrap it entirely and flatout ignored it because they either disagreed or (maybe) they didn't have enough development time to make something entirely new before Legion comes out.

- - - Updated - - -

HeelsvsBabyface: He was originally in favor of removing flying from the game and reversed his decision over time as he saw it didn't improve the game. The reason why his content is "negative" is because he is pointing out that we are in a gameplay content drought that Blizz created and they ignored a lot of feedback in WoD beta and are in danger of doing the same with Legion.

He also screams at people, including personal insults, on social media platforms because they disagree with him (And I'm not talking about myself). And also has a large tendency to make clickbait knee-jerk videos raging about stuff he doesn't like. The other people on your list I, for the most part, agree with, but Heelvsbabyface is pretty toxic.

[Breccia]

Ordinarily, I'd say something simple like "just go with the alpha forums, which you can only post in if you're playing the alpha and therefore can't be just some guy who watched the stream but didn't play it themselves" and move on.

But this is Celestalon, and when Celestalon says "when popular streams campaign for their opinion based on false/hyperbolic pretexts" my immediate, heartfelt reaction is to point out that he posted, in the WoD Arms beta forum, that he wanted to have a civil discussion about how obviously frustrated WoD Arms beta testers were about how unfun their class/spec was, then vanished for eleven months, letting the miserable spec go live despite nearly everyone's plea to the contrary.

Celestalon does not get to be upset about people lying or using hyperbole to make a point when
a) he provably didn't care about honest feedback, and
b) he holds the goddamn patent for lying during the beta.

I no longer care that if any other Blizz employee had posted this, I'd be tempted to at least hear them out. His intentional lack of respect for the (Arms) beta testers was so direct and so blatant that I feel the need to throw it back at him, regardless of the context. I'm glad the disrespect he's shown is coming back at him, to make his life a miserable chore. Hopefully he learns something like this and I don't have to spew any more bile during the next expac.

[Raiju]

I streamed few times our raids, I had like 2-3 watchers max. I do not stream often. I have alpha access. I strongly believe that streaming is not the reason.

Or that in this context you aren't relevant.

[Aggrophobic]

Your own fault for giving streamers Alpha/Beta priority then. Get people who will actually test in.

The free advertisement is worth way more than people who can "actually test".

[Deleted]

Blizzard has been always horrible at taking feedback they don't feel is valid. Even if it very much is. Granted they got rid of a lot of the stuff that made WoD bad, but they still seem insistent upon keeping some kind of base version of the Garrison Follower system. It is better in a lot of ways, but I think they saw people suggesting they just scrap it entirely and flatout ignored it because they either disagreed or (maybe) they didn't have enough development time to make something entirely new before Legion comes out.

I dont think that this is the biggest problem. Your totally right that garisons in WoD were bad, but were they bad because the complete system sucks or was it only bad execution? In my opinion blizzard often makes the mistake if something is critizised they completly get rid of it (like dailys, rep, etc. in WoD)
And this is the wrong way imo, too.

From what i saw so far, the order halls are much more better executed than the garisons. For example, most of them look pretty cool, your not alone in there, garison campaings have more meaning, your forced to go outside, etc.

but back to topic

For an Alpha people which treat testing serious should be invited. If this people are streamers/youtubers than iam totaly ok with it

[Deleted]

I really had feared that blizzard would be influenced by these streaming idols. Good thing he clarified it now

[Kyanion]

The free advertisement is worth way more than people who can "actually test".

Free advertisement to what? People who are already playing the game and buying Legion? You think those streams are full of people who have never played WoW or that they are not coming back for Legion? Get real. It is like going to a Comic convention and showing off the next issue of the Xmen and advertising it while letting select people have early access to show it to everyone. The target audience is already there so you aren't really advertising a damn thing.

[Raiju]

You mean, I am irrelevant because I don't blindly hate. I get that.

Plenty of people stream without blindly hating, but you aren't getting special booths at blizzcon, are you?

[Sarevokcz]

Sure...but if it is nothing new, then they have done it in Alpha's before and apparently that worked?

no, since streaming became popular, it hasnt workes out, like, ever. besides, most alphas before were friends and family AND with NDA, general playerbase got invited only to betas. But nowadays the line between alpha and beta is so blurry anyway, blizzard games in alpha are often more stable and playable than half the released games on steam

[Schizoide]

Personally I feel that this is simply a byproduct of Blizzard's decision to prioritise alpha keys to streamers. They seemed to be perfectly fine with prioritising alpha keys to streamers and reaping the benefits of the free marketing tied with that, and now they have to deal with the consequences of that decision. The streamers are not in the wrong here for acting in their self-interest, Blizzard is in the wrong for prioritising streamers in the first place. In the future they need to either give fewer streamers access to future Alphas and find more suitable people, or figure out a way to align the streamers' interests with Blizzard's interests. Otherwise we will have another feedback fiasco.

Yep. You got it 100% right in the OP. Nothing more to be said, really.