Communication Gone Sour

[thesmall001]

Anybody who follows the WoW-Twitter scene will know that over the last few months, after 2 years of excellent discussions and greatly improved player-developer communication, there seems to have been an internal action telling Devs to stop talking about game-stuff on Twitter or, at least, stop tipping people off to upcoming changes which prevents them talking about the philosophy leading up to that decision, effectively killing the discussions.

Before Twitter we had GC. The Martyr, The Legend, The Demon. We also, for better or worse, had more depth to the CM involvement on the forums. The Blue Tracker would light up daily with swaths of detailed back-and-forth and information. This information, usually on controversial changes or lack thereof, helped take the less palatable aspects of the game and make them easier to accept and helped make the wait for a fix tolerable. I always felt that if they told me how they felt then I could empathize with that and adjust how I approached something I didn't like. It made the game more enjoyable without actually changing the game.

I know many people really don't care (or anti-care) what Developers think. I know many people believed that Twitter was not an appropriate place for this stuff and lamented the forums that were thrown to the wayside. I know many people liked to use Twitter to hurl abuse at anybody they felt they might be able to bait into feeling bad. But it's my opinion that the Twitter Renaissance was a great time for WoW which helped produce some of the best community interaction we've seen in several expansions. It's sad that TPTB have decided the only communication we deserve is (frankly) CM fluff and a hot-fix announcement bot. I personally feel this has had an indirect impact on the feel of the community about the quality of the game. I'm curious as to how other people feel about it.

Edit: I left out the question that spurred me to originally write this post: Do you feel more or less listened to as a player since the Devs moved to Twitter and since they recently toned it down?

[MoanaLisa]

Can you really blame them given the last year and the string of incomplete and sometimes contradictory tweets? Actually I care a lot about what they think but just about every thing they say gets twisted into a 'promise' or something to later complain about.

It's not surprising that they've decided to rein it in for now.

In addition, private Twitter accounts that mix developer stuff with their beer drinking habits are a bad idea all the way around. Follow @warcraftdevs and see how it works out. It appears that since they've linked that account to their forum now the last couple of days has been a lot busier.

[Conscious]

Can you really blame them given the last year and the string of incomplete and sometimes contradictory tweets? Actually I care a lot about what they think but just about every thing they say gets twisted into a 'promise' or something to later complain about.

It's not surprising that they've decided to rein it in for now.

In addition, private Twitter accounts that mix developer stuff with their beer drinking habits are a bad idea all the way around. Follow @warcraftdevs and see how it works out. It appears that since they've linked that account to their forum now the last couple of days has been a lot busier.

I do, but at the same time I don't.

I get that they've got a lot of flak, probably more so as of late because of the really mixed batch this expansion has been.

But I also look at it as hiding. When you're on Twitter, you don't need to elaborate, you don't need to respond, you can just fire and forget messages.

Obviously that causes problems, but that's for another thread. The bottom line is their abstinence from communicating with their player base, and I'm sure GC would've attested to this, is alienating them at the same time.

Less communication, makes them more the villain here, than it does anything.

[thesmall001]

I'm not surprised either but I am disappointed. I agree that what we had before wasn't perfect. But reigning it back to such an extent isn't helping. Don't get me wrong, the life of a successful game like WoW is a constant "damned if you do, damned if you don't" struggle but there's got to be a middle ground between where we were and where we are now. I think communication about WHY changes happen/don't is important. I appreciate @WarcraftDevs gives a vein to announcements from Devs but it doesn't contextualize those changes.

As for mixing personal/professional? Well I agree that's a dangerous slope. I personally think it's great, both from a fan and developer perspective, to be able to network and get close and personal with your community. It's like every day is a mini-BlizzCon and it makes for Dev Fuel and more invested fans. There's room for a lot of fun and a lot of potential foul-play. It's not a manageable PR situation. You either have people or robots. Personally I'll take people, wonderful flawed individuals, any day. I know some people expect better from a company.

[CosmicGuitars]

Even all of the historians have left twitter. Sean Copeland, Ju'pa, etc. I know Copeland and his wife both left for health reasons, but they deleted their accounts as well, which means all of those lore responses they've given over the years went up in smoke. Ju'pa followed suit and went dark only a week ago, for reasons unknown. It's getting pretty concerning. Twitter was a fantastic resource to spitball questions about lore to the people who actually know what's what, and now all communications seem severed.

[-Superman-]

Don't blame them one bit, and am personally GLAD they are no longer allowed to randomly spew information through social media rather than appropriate channels. I've had some heated tweet sessions with Alex, Chris, and Bashiok. Everytime I would question why one person was saying one thing, and someone else had a variation. Guess trying to keep up with lies/inaccurate info finally caught up with them. Good. Maybe now they will release official info through the official site using official channels. Hope folks got their asses chewed for the PR bullshit and mishaps of the past 15 months.

[CosmicGuitars]

Don't blame them one bit, and am personally GLAD they are no longer allowed to randomly spew information through social media rather than appropriate channels. I've had some heated tweet sessions with Alex, Chris, and Bashiok. Everytime I would question why one person was saying one thing, and someone else had a variation. Guess trying to keep up with lies/inaccurate info finally caught up with them. Good. Maybe now they will release official info through the official site using official channels. Hope folks got their asses chewed for the PR bullshit and mishaps of the past 15 months.

Unfortunately, the alternative seems to be long bouts of silence.

[MoanaLisa]

44 posts on @Warcraftdevs in 3 days. We'll just have to see if the long silence between shutting down their personal Twitter accounts on game-related matters and getting @Warcraftdevs up and running was just them taking their own slow time to get themselves organized. They went to the trouble to make a sticky on their forums for it so time will have to tell.

I'm not a big fan of Twitter either but it's been a few years since GC did much with the forums and he was the last that worked at it in a conspicuous and regular way.

[Sweetpeaz]

44 posts on @Warcraftdevs in 3 days. We'll just have to see if the long silence between shutting down their personal Twitter accounts on game-related matters and getting @Warcraftdevs up and running was just them taking their own slow time to get themselves organized. They went to the trouble to make a sticky on their forums for it so time will have to tell.

I'm not a big fan of Twitter either but it's been a few years since GC did much with the forums and he was the last that worked at it in a conspicuous and regular way.

I think it makes total sense to have a company sponsored Twitter account instead of an individual one. I had real issues before, from a legal standpoint, to talk about game development on a personal account. Blizzard needs to push the intellectual property through formal channels and not personal ones.

I still hate Twitter though.

[ro9ue]

I'll never forget that time someone on this very board was snapping out saying that the WoW devs gave up on the game because Mumper tweeted about drinking a beer on his personal account.

After that I can't blame them for just making an official dev account.

[MoanaLisa]

I do too but at least the sticky thread puts up the question answered in the tweet. That's better than I might have predicted a couple of months ago even though both we and WowHead seem to manage it.

I presume that they think that too much context is dangerous. I can see why they might think that.

I also wish they would reverse the order if they plan to keep this up so that the latest is at the top. I've suggested that over there.

[CosmicGuitars]

It's also kind of frustrating to see them consolidate it all to WarcraftDevs because there's a lot of questions that simply cannot (or will not) be answered by the developers. Such as, story or lore questions, which the development team has proven time and time again that they know absolutely nothing about. They've shuttered the historian twitters, but have given us no suitable alternative.

With the historians gone, the only other option is to ask somebody like Kosak or Metzen directly... which means you're very unlikely to get an answer.

[thesmall001]

It's also kind of frustrating to see them consolidate it all to WarcraftDevs because there's a lot of questions that simply cannot (or will not) be answered by the developers. Such as, story or lore questions, which the development team has proven time and time again that they know absolutely nothing about. They've shuttered the historian twitters, but have given us no suitable alternative.

With the historians gone, the only other option is to ask somebody like Kosak or Metzen directly... which means you're very unlikely to get an answer.

In fairness, Justin was never much behind Twitter. He probably did it as a favor to Sean once Sean decided he'd be retiring his account for the aforementioned health reasons. Still, I worry because you get to know these people and you build a rapport and grow fond of them and they just disappear for ambiguous reasons. I'd sooner have people I've grown to like stick to personal stuff than disappear altogether.

But it's interesting. Public opinion HAS always seemed anti-twitter and pro-corporation, in that people seem to want Blizzard to limit themselves to official channels and limit them to non-personal interaction. That kills it for me, the moment you de-humanize your developers is the moment they stop being individuals and start being a soulless automaton of business. Business don't make good games. Diverse and creative and passionate people make good games. Maybe it's easier to blame a business. Maybe people feel entitled to ease of access of information.

I like @WarcraftDevs and it serves it's purpose well. It's just a shame that it comes at the expense of Developers using their Twitters to engage the community at large about the game. It creates a disconnect.

[arcaneshot]

I like @WarcraftDevs and it serves it's purpose well. It's just a shame that it comes at the expense of Developers using their Twitters to engage the community at large about the game. It creates a disconnect.

It's what the players wanted, after all. Not interested in the people and only care about sticking it to the Man.

[Ealyssa]

Unfortunately, the alternative seems to be long bouts of silence.

And why is that bad ?

Read less twitter, play more the game ?
When you are more interested about game news than the game itself, it may be time to think about it.

[Wildberry]

Read less twitter, play more the game ?

Unfortunately, we're in Warlords of Draenor, so there's not much game to play.

[Stonecloak]

Man, some of you really need to step back and get a grip on reality. This company doesn't care about it's favorite fan site, it's most flagship fans, ect. I understand subjectivity in opinions, but sometimes there's just irrefutable evidence on whats taking place. When anyone says anything it's important to follow through on what is said. "Your word is your bond". Ever hear that? Yea, its a thing. Instead of thinking of every excuse as to why somebody says something and something else happens. They should be accountable to a reasonable point. Is that always possible to do? No, but it should be striven for, and anyone with half a brain can tell when it's genuine or blatant, and In a huge convention show where your selling pre-orders and such to your loyal fan's. It's very important to get it right what you say. You can't blame people for not trusting them anymore. I'ts even more ridiculous to turn the argument into semantics ignoring the obviousness of the situation, and that is they done F'd up.

[Jessicka]

It was nice in that you get the questions out there and answered. Less good that you had to follow a whole bunch of different people, work out who to ask what, and very often get an off-the-cuff answer that missed the point or was just factually incorrect.

[A Dark Knight]

who cares, involved or not, they will do what the feel is right

[Count Zero]

Look at how much shit the community gives them over every single thing they say. Can you blame them for rolling it back ?