"Cynically negative" community cause of communication breakdown

[Servasus]

lol idk what the problem is, if i see people using nothing but cuss word and generalized statements (which is the case, more often than not), i would instantly ignore them and never even engage.

I applaud every bit of Blizzard's attitude.

The problem is the toxic, "masculine" wasteland of a section of the internet (A lot of WoW official forum, mmo-c posters, and Redditors especially) realize that people aren't taking their abuse as much anymore and they are struggling to hold onto what little power they believe they have left. They've "grown up" in this modern age being taught that speaking rudely to someone is somehow justified simply because you "pay their bills" and purchase their product. (News flash, I don't care if you walk into a bakery and buy their entire display of cupcakes; you don't get to act like an entitled, uncivilized dick to the person behind the counter just because you purchased their food.)

If you can't put together coherent thoughts that are civilized, Blizzard has every right to ignore your so called "feedback."

And look, I get it. I raided hardcore for years at All-Star rankings and I understand what it feels like to be so enveloped in your game that you think you know everything there is to know about it, and should be listened to just because you have that experience. And maybe your opinion IS valid, but screaming a Blizzard employee, telling them they are incompetent, that a 5 year old could do their job better, that you hope they get fired from their job...that is NOT okay. You're an adult. Act like one or expect that no one will A.) Care about your rude-ass opinion and B.) Want to engage with your aggressive, toxic personality. It's not Blizzard's JOB to take abuse for the sake of "feedback."

Do you realize upwards of 10,000,000 people play this game at times? They have PLENTY of feedback. Feedback which doesn't involve sass, aggression or entitlement. A lot of that feedback even has the SAME end goal as your own feedback. The difference being that you're being an immature, unpleasant dick about it, and the other person is being respectful and tactful and getting their point across without threats or agression.

So good. I hope Blizzard continues to ignore and ultimately ban toxicity from their forums and their games. It's about time the internet starts putting the immature masculine roid rage in its place. Nothing constructive comes out of these people. Only hate and anger and unhappiness that ultimately just spreads to others like a virulent disease.

[Niwes]

when a company more and more shows, that profit is not > all (thats normally for a company), but profit >>>>>> all, and become greedy as hell, doing cost effective development the most maximized hard way, and more and more show their loyal customers that they wether give a fuck on them, nor they listen or care what their customers say, because $$$ >>>>>> everything, well...

... THEN „perhaps“ this is the moment, were your playerbase become salty and cynical, and start loosing trust in you.

my question is: what have blizzard expected ? what do they expect what happens when they go this route ? and what they had expected, what community they built, when you give em tools that support toxic behaviour, itemlevel > all, ninja looting (pre PL era), etc etc ??? what the hell they expected ?

PS:
ofc white knights will start make their cooldowns rdy immediatelly, but, as most white knights i met in game, also they will get their eyes opened in 1-2 years from now. at this time in future, ofc there will be other white knights or the hardcore knights defending blizz with their life, but most of them, when feeling blizzard behaviour long enough, had stopped defending blizz at this time. when you play wow 13 years you already have seen everything. so, bashing could start. imo it wont last long.

[Servasus]

Do you even go to the official forums? There's so much insulting, negative bullshit over there and 90% of it never gets any reaction from the CMs. They let a lot slide.

The guy you quoted is a typical oppressor losing their power and struggling to hold onto it. He used the phrase, "slapping people down when they don't puke rainbows of positivity." AKA, "I want to be a dick to someone when I'm mad about something and everyone should listen to me and let me get away with it."

No moderator asked for you to be overly nice or positive or fake or glittery or whatever buzzword you want to use. They just want intelligent, coherent, and civilized conversation. Any other type of conversation really doesn't have merit because that person is letting their emotions control the keyboard.

So yeah. If you click a new thread button and starting typing away, insulting Blizzard right off the bat, telling them they should be fired, tossing insults every which way, then don't be shocked when no one wants to take you opinion seriously. Welcome to reality. If all you're going to do is bitch and complain and threaten and be aggressive, no one will want to be around you, let alone listen to what you have to say.

- - - Updated - - -

when a company more and more shows, that profit is not > all (thats normally for a company), but profit >>>>>> all, and become greedy as hell, doing cost effective development the most maximized hard way, and more and more show their loyal customers that they wether give a fuck on them, nor they listen or care what their customers say, because $$$ >>>>>> everything, well...

... THEN „perhaps“ this is the moment, were your playerbase become salty and cynical, and start loosing trust in you.

my question is: what have blizzard expected ? what do they expect what happens when they go this route ?

PS:
ofc white knights will start make their cooldowns rdy immediatelly, but, as most white knights i met in game, also they will get their eyes opened in 1-2 years from now. at this time, ofc there will be other white knights or the hardcore knights defending blizz with their life, but most of, when feeling blizzard behaviour long enough, had stopped defending blizz at this time. so, bashing could start. imo it wont last long.

"White Knight," AKA "I want to bitch about something and possibly be a dick about it and anyone who disagrees with me is blind and wrong."

In all the years I've been online, browsing forums and public threads, never once have I seen a constructive thought come from someone who utters the term "white knight," as a counter argument. If you have to toss out that incredibly overused and transparently insecure buzzword, you might as well just say "I know what I'm saying is mean/rude/harsh/uncalled for but I'm angry and I have no other way to shield my opinion from counter arguments other than making the other person seem crazy or blind or misguided first."

[WrongCracker]

There are more popular games with bigger player-bases and worse communities that have much better dev-player communication so no I don't rly feel bad for Blizzard especially considering their track-record.

Blizzard isn't some humble indie company with a small staff that's overworked and I wish people would stop treating them that way.

There arent more popular games.

and yes to the second part

[Deleted]

So many people in this thread proving Ornyx right.

Yep, people are such drama queens.

In the end, it's just a game, something you do in your free time. Some people take it way too serious and act like certain changes are life changing events or something.

[Deleted]

No moderator asked for you to be overly nice or positive or fake or glittery or whatever buzzword you want to use. They just want intelligent, coherent, and civilized conversation. Any other type of conversation really doesn't have merit because that person is letting their emotions control the keyboard.

And yet we have a ridicoulus amount of evidence from WoD and Legion beta that proves that even with constructive, polite and reasonable feedback you will still get completely ignored. No "intelligent, coherent and civilized conversation" ever happened.
As I said in my previous post, it should be no surprise that if you go under radio silence for months and ignore every type of feedback, even the most constructive part of the community will eventually turn negative and rage-y.

I don't really understand how a WoW player could ever be on Blizzard side on this. THEY couldn't manage "cynycally negative feedback" and never bothered to ban/punish overly agressive posters, THEY choose to start cutting communication more and more every expansion, THEY chose radio silence on every choice they made, rather explaining the community their reasons, and THEY singlehandely decide the community is happy because their stupid time/played metric is going good.

Also, I would expect a company like Blizzard to be able to handle it's community. LoL and DoTA have a far more bigger and way more toxic community, yet on their US forums, Twitter and Reddit you see developers constantly responding to feedback. With Blizzard general attitude in many aspect of the game, you can't really blame the community for running wild with the "small indie company" meme.

[Donald Hellscream]

I mean they are not wrong, whats the point in listening to people who buries their few valid points in a torrent of pathetic childlike insults?
And them being a customer does not automaticly mean their opinion should be valued more, the entire the customer is always right mantra is and has always been a load of shit.

[Niwes]

The guy you quoted is a typical oppressor losing their power and struggling to hold onto it. He used the phrase, "slapping people down when they don't puke rainbows of positivity." AKA, "I want to be a dick to someone when I'm mad about something and everyone should listen to me and let me get away with it."

No moderator asked for you to be overly nice or positive or fake or glittery or whatever buzzword you want to use. They just want intelligent, coherent, and civilized conversation. Any other type of conversation really doesn't have merit because that person is letting their emotions control the keyboard.

So yeah. If you click a new thread button and starting typing away, insulting Blizzard right off the bat, telling them they should be fired, tossing insults every which way, then don't be shocked when no one wants to take you opinion seriously. Welcome to reality. If all you're going to do is bitch and complain and threaten and be aggressive, no one will want to be around you, let alone listen to what you have to say.

- - - Updated - - -



"White Knight," AKA "I want to bitch about something and possibly be a dick about it and anyone who disagrees with me is blind and wrong."

In all the years I've been online, browsing forums and public threads, never once have I seen a constructive thought come from someone who utters the term "white knight," as a counter argument. If you have to toss out that incredibly overused and transparently insecure buzzword, you might as well just say "I know what I'm saying is mean/rude/harsh/uncalled for but I'm angry and I have no other way to shield my opinion from counter arguments other than making the other person seem crazy or blind or misguided first."

imo there are 5 types of ppl:

- pro blizz with a bit differentiation
- contra blizz with a bit differentation
- balanced midground ppl complaining about x while defending y.
- instantly complaing about everything. always. all at blizz/wow is bad, without any doubt.
- instantly hyping and defending everything. always. all at blizz/wow is good, without any doubt.

the last 2 of that are useless to discuss with. they will never agree to anything of the opposite faction, nor will anything be based on arguments, rather than on their mission to complain or defend. you will never come at least to a „this is just your oppinion, and this is mine“ point, bc they wont stop until you adopted their oppinion completely.

the last of them i call white knights.

one sign of a white knight is, when you complain about just ONE topic of wow/blizz, but they immideatelly start defending EVERYTHING, and act, like you dont complained about ONE topic, but instead you complained/offended EVERYTHING. they put in your mouth you complain about everything and stuff like complainers/haters gonna hate/rose tinted/whatever. no differentation. no doubt on anything.

lets recap:

- i complained about the company behaviour of blizzard and used a commonly known term for ppl as same worse as always-complainers.
- you call me to be the opposite of a „white knight“ and that i use that term just to undifferentiated support my arguments.
- you are obviously in defensive mode, like i attacked your whole game, lifestyle, or whatever.
- you seem to have no doubt and call me out to be something that targets EVERYTHING, when i just complained about blizz company behaviour.

sorry bro, looks very white knightish to me, what you do there.

maybe you could try this: just keep it at topic, dont agree to my oppinion to that ONE thing about blizz, and discuss about that. instead attacking me, derailing things and call me „using white knight to support his arguments...“. and btw: you said NOTHING on the topic itself.

[kary]

The problem is the toxic, "masculine" wasteland of a section of the internet (A lot of WoW official forum, mmo-c posters, and Redditors especially) realize that people aren't taking their abuse as much anymore and they are struggling to hold onto what little power they believe they have left. They've "grown up" in this modern age being taught that speaking rudely to someone is somehow justified simply because you "pay their bills" and purchase their product. (News flash, I don't care if you walk into a bakery and buy their entire display of cupcakes; you don't get to act like an entitled, uncivilized dick to the person behind the counter just because you purchased their food.)

If you can't put together coherent thoughts that are civilized, Blizzard has every right to ignore your so called "feedback."

And look, I get it. I raided hardcore for years at All-Star rankings and I understand what it feels like to be so enveloped in your game that you think you know everything there is to know about it, and should be listened to just because you have that experience. And maybe your opinion IS valid, but screaming a Blizzard employee, telling them they are incompetent, that a 5 year old could do their job better, that you hope they get fired from their job...that is NOT okay. You're an adult. Act like one or expect that no one will A.) Care about your rude-ass opinion and B.) Want to engage with your aggressive, toxic personality. It's not Blizzard's JOB to take abuse for the sake of "feedback."

Do you realize upwards of 10,000,000 people play this game at times? They have PLENTY of feedback. Feedback which doesn't involve sass, aggression or entitlement. A lot of that feedback even has the SAME end goal as your own feedback. The difference being that you're being an immature, unpleasant dick about it, and the other person is being respectful and tactful and getting their point across without threats or agression.

So good. I hope Blizzard continues to ignore and ultimately ban toxicity from their forums and their games. It's about time the internet starts putting the immature masculine roid rage in its place. Nothing constructive comes out of these people. Only hate and anger and unhappiness that ultimately just spreads to others like a virulent disease.

Tbh, they act more like middle aged white women than roid raging teens.

[Caolela]

I registered here to post in this topic because I just had an experience with Blizz CS that was far from pleasant. I did say, in fact, that they made decisions based on making money and that it was insulting that they act as if the player base doesn't know this. I was then reprimanded by TWO Blizz CS employees who seemed to take personal offense at my statement. (Truth hurt?) The crux of the conversation was that I asked a question on twitter and was told to go ask the question on the forums, but that I wouldn't receive a response. (Then why ask at all I wondered) Rather than saying that they could not comment, they purposely were rude and basically told me to go away. I then asked the question on the forums, only to be told by the player base to try asking on twitter...

They cherry pick what they want to respond to, and if they don't like what you have to say, they admonish you or outright ignore you. I asked a simple question so that I could make an informed decision on whether or not I wanted to continue to give money to this company. Based solely on how I was treated by CS, and subsequent communications after where the content of my complaint was ignored in favor of more cherry picking, after 13 years, I logged out and cancelled my account.

The cause of the communication breakdown is petty employees and their refusal to treat the player base like they have any value. Of course they blame it on us, and yet they create a system where they readily admit that you won't get answers from them no matter where you ask. They drive any sane person to frustration and then claim the person is being negative. Acting as if they are doing us a favor by giving us breadcrumbs, when we, the players, are they reason they have any bread to begin with.

They treat the player base like kindergartners. They act like we are too stupid to see what they do and how they do it. When you say to them that they won't respond to 1000 people asking the same question, the response is "you didn't ask the question the correct way". So we reword it and ask again, only to be ignored. When we get frustrated with this, they condescend to us and tell us WE are the problem. I can no longer support this. Sure, you can have my stuff. I won't need it. I won't be back. I have kicked worse habits than wow, and the CS team made my decision so very easy.

^ This is what Blizz has turned into - arrogant asshats undeserving of a customer's respect.

Most normal people would give them the big "fuck you" if they were treated like this by a company they had been good enough to patronize.

[kary]

^ This is what Blizz has turned into - arrogant asshats undeserving of a customer's respect.

Most normal people would give them the big "fuck you" if they were treated like this by a company they had been good enough to patronize.

You get respect when you give respect.
Most forum posters that are critical do not show any respect, at all. Y'all sit there, thinking that you're entitled to a pleasant response when you act like a jackass from your first post. Ha.

[Caolela]

You get respect when you give respect.
Most forum posters that are critical do not show any respect, at all. Y'all sit there, thinking that you're entitled to a pleasant response when you act like a jackass from your first post. Ha.

The poster I quoted did not act untoward in any way and was still treated like shit by Blizzard. His story is fairly typical of what I've seen from others and my own experience with Blizz CS as well.

My first reply in this string was honest and fully deserved by Blizz. Sorry but when you sugar-coat things you aren't getting at the real issues.

[kary]

The poster I quoted did not act untoward in any way and was still treated like shit by Blizzard.

My first reply in this string was honest and fully deserved by Blizz. Sorry but when you sugar-coat things you aren't getting at the real issues.

sure he did.

[Caolela]

sure he did.

He said, "...that they made decisions based on making money and that it was insulting that they act as if the player base doesn't know this..." He was pointing out the obvious.

That was the excuse the Blizz employees used to start acting like giant cunts.

[Goldielocks]

The problem with Blizz devs since Wrath has always been that they don't even recognize constructive criticism and they never admit their fuck-ups until they can no longer hide or explain them away.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that any company does that these days? The idea of admitting defeat might hurt their sales. At least in their mind they think it does? Idk it seems to be a common trend.

[Animalhouse]

Only fanboys are allowed in the official forums. Any comment which is critical of the game is deemed as not constructive.

This^

Blizzard devs are absolutely arrogant and lockdown any and all dissent. It has always been this way, they have a vision and almost never veer from it. People try and speak up and naturally out of frustration and devs take it personally and become further entrenched. Then towards the end of the expansion, they know full well they made a mistake and will then say crap like "in hindsight, this could have been improved" or "our reason was___, and we failed to communicate it better". They almost never say "we screwed up" or "we are sorry". They don't seem to learn. Their lap dog fanboys just enable them!

FFS, look at how legion was for alts and now we are going to get a steady stream of allied races and more alt spots and Ion just said BfA is going to be on par with legion for alts!!! It just boggles the mind how Blizz devs are so out of fucking touch. I don't believe they have a pulse on the community AT ALL. They stay in their bubble wrapped in Blizz culture and that is all they know or see.

[IceMan1763]

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that any company does that these days? The idea of admitting defeat might hurt their sales. At least in their mind they think it does? Idk it seems to be a common trend.

It seems like a defense mechanism when things start going south... when things are going well I feel like a development team is more likely to admit a mistake because they feel they have some good will with the community built up. Blizzard cashed in all of their good will with WOD and now needs to actually make a good expansion again to make the playerbase happy. They don't like actually have to work for it again!

Legiondaries are probably the biggest example. They have basically admitted they were a huge mistake by going with ZERO legendaries in BFA after having what? 100 or so in Legion? Would they do that if the system was a success?

But they didn't ACTUALLY admit the mistake... they just said "we learned lessons". The community would respect them more if they just admitted they were wrong and agree to listen to feedback and consider real changes when the magnitude and volume of feedback on something as big as the Legiondary system reaches a critical level. I think the feedback on this system along with a few other decisions did reach that level on the forums... I was there. It was just completely ignored for Legion as is the tradition for alpha, beta, and pretty much any feedback we give the development team.

[kary]

He said, "...that they made decisions based on making money and that it was insulting that they act as if the player base doesn't know this..." He was pointing out the obvious.

That was the excuse the Blizz employees used to start acting like giant cunts.

And you don't think that statement is cunty and passive aggressive?
No wonder you're in shock.

[Sharby]

There arent more popular games.

and yes to the second part

WoW is not the most popular mmo out there at the moment.

It is not even one of the most profitable. A simple google search can tell you that.

The days of WoW being a top dog in the genre are pretty much over.

[IceMan1763]

WoW is not the most popular mmo out there at the moment.

It is not even one of the most profitable. A simple google search can tell you that.

The days of WoW being a top dog in the genre are pretty much over.

Exactly. Overwatch is a MUCH bigger game than WOW is now.