TLD developer brings up a good point about game development.

[Noomz]

And Blizzard should take a lesson from this guy.

http://www.pcgamer.com/the-long-dark...e-driver-seat/

“The community doesn’t belong in the driver seat,” van Lierop said. “[The community] is a tool, a data point, a voice to listen to, but they haven’t spent years of their lives doing this job. I know it’s an unpopular way of approaching it, but my opinion is that if you do [allow the community in the driver seat], you’re not going to have as strong an expression of your creative vision. We’re getting a lot of benefit from the community and we’re not about ignoring the community, you just incorporate the ideas."

[zealo]

He's absolutely right too there. A community is a good source of feedback but it shouldn't be the main force behind what decisions are made. Far from every idea that gets presented is good for the overall context of a game.

[Katchii]

And Blizzard should take a lesson from this guy.

Didn't Ghostcrawler (when in WoW) say almost exactly this same thing a while ago? I'm trying to find the quote, but can't. It was through twitter on the front page here at MMO-C and basically said the community needs to speak and the developers need to listen but ultimately it's up to the developer to make the decision.

[Dezerte]

Any respectable artist should operate in that manner.

[Ratyrel]

Blizzard does exactly that though, its something that Ghostcrawler has very clearly said:

With all due respect, this is poop. I would never say that I don't care about community input. Maybe artists or writers can get away with delivering on a vision without outside input, but I don't believe many game developers can work that way, at least if they are building games with a large player base.

On the contrary, I recognized really early on in my career how valuable getting unfiltered feedback is from players. That's why I have always spent so much effort to try to communicate on forums, twitter or even face to face. I don't know how you can develop games without that input, and the fact that Riot takes player feedback so seriously is one of the reasons I decided it would be a good fit for me.

Now, it's possible that someone was misquoting or misremembering an instance when I was trying to explain the role of a game designer. Sometimes players will assert that the community should be responsible for balance (or even all) changes to a game, because players as a collective spend far more time with the game than any individual developer ever could. My opinion on that approach is that it wouldn't work well. Crowdsourcing is great at solving problems or even coming up with novel ideas, but it isn't great at designing things. Players have different interests or goals or even different visions for how they think a game should work. Instead, I believe better results are achieved when there is a vision holder making decisions, but those decisions are informed from player feedback.

The distinction is something like this:

-- Should a developer make *every* change suggested by players? No way and yikes.
-- Should a developer make changes that are informed by player feedback? *Every* time.

[Fullmetal89]

I'm confused by "And Blizzard should take a lesson from this guy." Since when does Blizzard listen to the community lol. They have always done w/e they felt like, despite of feedback. Sure there are times when they do something that agrees with something the community wanted done. That doesn't mean that they did it because the community demanded, but because they had the same idea or where already planning on going in that direction.

I agree with what the guy said to an extent. When it comes to class balance for example, I think what he said doesn't apply. Class balance is something the heavily relies on feedback. A lot of the time the developers don't have the time or experience with the classes they are changing. A lot of the changes make no sense and it shows that they are confused about the problem. That is when you should listen to the community feedback.

[thorvath]

Since everybody else has pointed out that Blizz already operates this way, I'll point out that the dev you are quoting is referring to the development of early access games (aka the latest cancer on gaming). So basically he's selling an unfinished game, presumably to illicit feedback from the community, and then stating that feedback is way less important than that money they are giving him.

Based on my WoD experience Blizz is absolutely taking that advice.

[Deleted]

The developer has a point but there's a fine line between listening to feedback and having players completely drive your project. If you let them steer too much the project is simply not of the developer anymore

[Tech614]

And Blizzard should take a lesson from this guy.

1) Blizzard already operates in this same manor.

2) I don't think blizzard needs to take any lesson from a shovelware indy game in early access. Blizzard is the MLB, and these guys are still in high school wondering if they'll be drafted.

[Deleted]

okay look.....imagine that dev team with their own vision brutally forcing it on their playerbase which doesnt like it and see what happens ...or just take Wild star.

[Tech614]

okay look.....imagine that dev team with their own vision brutally forcing it on their playerbase which doesnt like it and see what happens ...or just take Wild star.

If you don't like the vision a developer has for their game, it's not their fault you bought it and want it changed... There is this thing called the internet, no one should go into a video game blind knowing nothing about the direction it's heading in unless you choose to do so because you already have a great trust value with said developer.

If every developer just went with the general consensus of what is most popular to the internet we would see nothing but mobas, shooters and RPGs made. And all of them would be carbon copies of each other, yea that right there is a good enough reason to make the game YOU want to make and not what THE INTERNET wants you to make. If it fails because of your vision it's likely because it wasn't good, not because you didn't listen to the internet as your lord and savior and let them make the game for you.

[Flaks]

There's a difference in listening to the community on new ideas they can implement and listening to the community when the submit tons of feedback on bugs and broken design.

The latter is far more important and is something blizzard largely ignores no matter how much constructive feedback they receive. The former blizzard only listens to when there's massive qq (ie not constructive feedback).