"Cynically negative" community cause of communication breakdown

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

The misrepresentation, in this thread, of what Ornyx said does nothing more than support what he was talking about. The follow up post, immediately after Ornyx's, by Ythisens is a nice closing exclamation point.

Yeah I thought that was good:

"This is actually incorrect. You actually had a pretty good application and made it through our initial round of pruning as well as the first round of actual rejections, you most likely as well would've made it into the final round. We removed you at your request but we had no ill will against you. I was actually looking forward to your application because it seemed like you were legitimately interested.

For some transparency in our review process, we've actually hid the names until the end so that we don't know who it is we're reviewing. We wanted a 100% clean slate as both Orynx and I were obviously not around in the original MVP creation. With it having a new role and members, we didn't want anybody to carry past judgments into this new program.

We've actually been specifically looking for people that challenge us, as an MVP is not someone that should just be blinded by us being Blizzard. We should be called out if you disagree with something we're doing and an MVP is a person that should be an example of a way to do that respectfully and eloquently."

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Nothing about what I posted was a "strange insult" or a misdirection.

Statements like "The prune is a myth" is hilarious when Ion himself has publicly admitted they "went too far" pruning abilities. For someone with such a hard on for Blizzard you don't seem to have a clue about... anything?

I directly pointed out why you are a toxic community member and should not be listened to at all. You declined to even reply to anything I posted because you can't.

You believe Alpha access is a gift and any feedback that is critical of Blizzards design direction is "not helpful". I think you're actually bordering on clinically insane.

You've been embarrassed publicly and now want to take the discussion elsewhere? No thanks. Just stop posting.

I think it would be helpful to discuss this personally, instead of over text. Its obvious I wasn't clear with what I said and I'd like an opportunity to understand your points better.
You'd have a chance to explain your stance better and I could react to it in earnest much easier.

Would you be willing to do that? I would be very appreciative and I often find cooler heads prevail when we discuss things using our voices instead of finger tips.

[MoanaLisa]

Certainly there's a very vocal segment of the regular forum population on any WoW fan board that could be called "cynically negative".

And no, engaging with them in a positive way is a complete waste of time. That said, if Blizzard wants to take a more active hand in cleaning up their forums they certainly have the means to do so and the methods aren't really mysterious or a secret. That's fine but it comes at a cost that useful criticism expressed in about the least useful way possible will be silenced.

It's a hard thing. Like all things, there's a fair amount of grey space between what people think of as black and white binary positions.

I don't really think it's the community manager's job necessarily to respond to people as a primary responsibility. It's certainly more important to accurately assess, collate and deliver useful information to the developers. Community managers at the end of the day are just carrying water for them in any case. If the devs want to speak they know how to do so.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

If you choose to reply to anything I have pointed out - you may get your opportunity.


Do you not understand how toxic your Alpha Forum posts are? For someone who loves this game so much - why are you directly trying to destroy the feedback process?

I totally understand that it looks that way. I likely misspoke in those threads and I'd love an opportunity to elaborate on what I said there and to what I was specifically responding. Reading it again it does appear to be detrimental to the testing process, I agree.

[Cathfaern]

The irony here is that aaaaaaall the way through MoP, it was being absolutely shat on by the community for its "cutesy, Kung Fu Panda" vibe.

Same thing with WotLK

You should also mention Cata and WoD, where they did for what people was crying during WotLK. Never again.

[cparle87]

The irony here is that aaaaaaall the way through MoP, it was being absolutely shat on by the community for its "cutesy, Kung Fu Panda" vibe. Never-ending vitriol. Now people are saying it was one of the greats.

Same thing with WotLK - during the expac itself, everyone was shouting at the top of their voice how it was "lazy and easy, dumbed down, incomplete" yadda yadda... and then several years on you keep seeing WotLK at the tops of a lot of "best expac" lists.

The point is, people whine and cry and bitch and complain and throw tantrums all the time, ad nauseum, about everything. You can't throw a rock without hitting a "THIS GAME IS DEAD NOW" rant, and its been this way basically since the game was released. Everyone wants to have a cry about something, and it never stops.

People say "Blizzard should listen to the players". Sure. Which players should they listen to? There are millions of people with millions of different opinions. Every so often someone makes a statement saying "all of us want X from the game" which is absolutely fucking ludicrous, because it competes with statements simultaneously saying "all of us want Y from the game" and "we want to see more of Z".

People are, generally, just happy to complain, and everyone's opinion is different to everyone else's.

Do you actually think this company, one of THE most successful game companies of all time, sits down and says "You know what we should do with our most popular product, our flagship and biggest earner, one that we as its developers are passionate about? LOL LETS MAKE IT SHIT, JUST FOR A LAUGH".

I love you. You are my new best friend. /hug

[Tradu]

Or maybe their horrible communication and constant disregard for feedback(which they act on a year later and pretend they came up with it themselves) is what caused the community to become cynical and negative.

[Kaleredar]

Hey look, a cynically negative thread.

[HuxNeva]

In a recent Blizzard post, Ornyx insists that it is the "cynically negative" community at fault for the communication breakdown between Blizzard and the community:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/...age=6#post-116
He fails to see "any reason why it would be in our best interest to actively engage with" this part of the community.

My response is simply this: if a community manager does not wish to manage and participate with the community then they should immediately resign and find someone who is willing to try. If that is how they really feel, we will continue stuck in this limbo state indefinitely as long as they're around.

It is not helpful in the slightest when one side has clearly given up attempting to manage the community as a community manager. There is nothing more frustrating than employees who stick around when they have clearly given up and burnt out. Be the change they want us to be.

Seems he's referring to a salty thread by a specific individual. Why are you trying to frame this differently?

[Doomchicken]

Tbf If I had read posts from the likes of people like scarecrowz I wouldn't want to be communicating with people on the forum either tbh.

[Louz]

You should also mention Cata and WoD, where they did for what people was crying during WotLK. Never again.

Exactly, especially WoD was tailored to the "community" that has been so vocal.

Dungeons and LFR made obsolete - no interesting trinkets, no tier bonuses, no pretty looking gear you would want to use for transmog.

Ashran - "Good old AV, an endless battle where you join in the morning, then in the evening, and it's still the same battle going on". How did that turn out, and mind you, people were asking for it so much.

Then you have expansions like WotLK and MoP - one known for "dumbing the raids down" by adding 10/25man difficulty and normal/heroic switch, other one for "kung fu pandas and lore pulled out of someone's ass". Ironically, those were generally the most popular expansions.

[Cheze]

I mean, the dude's right; look at the kind of dreck that gets regularly posted on the general forums (or hell, these forums)

if someone repeatedly is call you a malicious liar and/or much worse things, is that a person you're gonna continue to make an effort to communicate with?

blizzard are really good at user communication; they do more of it than basically any other dev I can think of other than maybe riot, and even riot are a lot less interactive about it

....

imo there is a big problem in gaming and in customer relations in general; because businesses have decided the customer can never be wrong about anything, they wind up inevitably treating all their customers like children. I would much rather have honest posts like ornyx' than the kind of 'we value all user feedback' drivel you get from other outfits

[Zyky]

Sounds like you need to get better at playing outlaw if that is what you think.

The facts are in the statistics lol. You can say "you're a bad player" but the proof is very clear that Outlaw is garbage. There's a reason there's 50,000 Assassination Rogues raiding Mythic Antorus and only 4,400 playing Outlaw. Facts, not opinion, not skill based.

[Aggrophobic]

Yeah but he's always been this way. Why he still has that job, I don't know.

[grexly75]

The community is a bunch of immature, vitriolic idiots. They have nothing constructive to say. If they want communication they should get themselves civilised. As it stands they don’t deserve anything at all, except maybe the back of hand.

Go read the first page of threads in general wow forums and tell me that any self respecting adult would engage with that load of drivel.

Pretty much this, just looking at the OP and the post immediately after it show how toxic the community is.. I wonder if they were in the same job as Ornyx, how long it would take them before they were doing the same thing, having to listen to the bitching, moaning and the whining.. It would start to get to one down..

[Aggrophobic]

Nice tampering with a quote to get your "point" across.

Quote in full...since you linked it, put it in quotation marks to convey the impression it is an actual quote, why then leave two important words out.

Full quote is: "I don't see any reason why it would be in our best interest to actively engage with a part of the community that is cynically negative."

....a part....

Yeah, he's saying that Blizzard doesn't care if their customers are not happy with the product. Thats a rather dangerous stance to take.

[grexly75]

The official forums have always been like this. It's been a vat of cancer ever since its inception. Sounds like Ornyx is just tired of it.

Totally, it would start to wear thin after a while, having to listen to the toxic community, the OP pretty much proves how toxic it has become..

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah but he's always been this way. Why he still has that job, I don't know.

Maybe because no one else is dumb enough, to be a community manager.. Just look at some of the toxic shit they have to put up with and you can probably see why it is such a thankless shitty job, listening to people bitching, whinging, QQing and so on all the time..

[Aggrophobic]

Totally, it would start to wear thin after a while, having to listen to the toxic community, the OP pretty much proves how toxic it has become..

- - - Updated - - -



Maybe because no one else is dumb enough, to be a community manager.. Just look at some of the toxic shit they have to put up with and you can probably see why it is such a thankless shitty job, listening to people bitching, whinging, QQing and so on all the time..

Sure, but it's his job and he's rather bad at it.

[grexly75]

Nice tampering with a quote to get your "point" across.

Quote in full...since you linked it, put it in quotation marks to convey the impression it is an actual quote, why then leave two important words out.

Full quote is: "I don't see any reason why it would be in our best interest to actively engage with a part of the community that is cynically negative."

....a part....

Yeah reading the link one can see how the OP underhandedly doctored the quote to suit their own purposes..

[Louz]

Yeah, he's saying that Blizzard doesn't care if their customers are not happy with the product. Thats a rather dangerous stance to take.

He's replying to a shitposter with almost 10k posts on the official forums.

He's being diplomatic about it, but what he's saying is that "if your post history is shit, we ignore you".

Nothing wrong with that tbh.