Metzen Interview about Fandom and Toxicity

[Mirishka]

I think he has been a bit naive and maybe played on peoples feeling too much. I mean they wanted the divide, they wanted faction pride etc.
Ultimately though, it's not his fault that some few people can't separate fantasy from reality.

I watched a few Blizzcons and while "For the Hoard!!1"was common, I never felt treated with disrespect just because I was a Alliance player.

Exactly. Metzen should be able to say the horde's catchphrase without a bunch of delusional morons intrepreting that as 'run up to alliance players and slap them with my flailing nerds arms!'

[Moonstream]

They definitely should have incorporated more from "A good War" and "Elegy" into the actual game.
Reading both helped a lot but I'm afraid most people won't do that.

Agreed. It could have been very engaging too, just have the pre-patch stuff happen a few weeks earlier. While I think this has been one of the better prepatches as far as just significant and emotional things happening (stuff to actually do was lacking); they could have made it even better just by adding a few more elements from those short stories. Heck even just a few more lines of dialog between npc's would have been great.

[Unholyground]

People are strange, I honestly hope the factions merge at the end of BfA and all the extremists go play another game lol.

[Dalheim]

After reading that small snippet from the interview it makes me think of how I jumped on the hate bandwagon a bit.. And after reading it I now know what a complete idiot I was for jumping on that bandwagon, and I am ashamed of that.. It is just unfortunate that a lot of the others do not reflect on it for a moment..

Good on you for at least realising it. ^^

[Gaexion Ramza Beoulve]

So long as people pay to play wow there will always be 'toxicity' because of the consumer/producer relationship. Without a certain level of 'toxicity' the producer will take advantage of you for everything you have. Consider the relationship apple has with it's customers and how much they bend them over the rails and buttfuck them for every penny they have every time a 'new' iphone comes out or a 'new' 5000$ 'laptop' comes out. Consider how apple unleashes loads of proprietary nonsense on their customers.

If that's the kind of relationship you want to have with your media then by all means let down your defenses and spread your asscheeks for your corporate overlords.

Fandoms like Star Wars™ don't owe Disney© or anyone an ounce of respect or a dime of their money just because of legacy, political correctness, etc, besides the movie was fine if not average.

The internet is a terrible place full of terrible people and you must have claws if you want to survive.

[grexly75]

Good on you for at least realising it. ^^

It does feel good to get it off ones shoulders, it would be nice to see others realize it.. Hopefully one day they will realize it like I did after reading the interview..

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So long as people pay to play wow there will always be 'toxicity' because of the consumer/producer relationship. Without a certain level of 'toxicity' the producer will take advantage of you for everything you have. Consider the relationship apple has with it's customers and how much they bend them over the rails and buttfuck them for every penny they have every time a 'new' iphone comes out or a 'new' 5000$ 'laptop' comes out. Consider how apple unleashes loads of proprietary nonsense on their customers.

If that's the kind of relationship you want to have with your media then by all means let down your defenses and spread your asscheeks for your corporate overlords.

Fandoms like Star Wars™ don't owe Disney© or anyone an ounce of respect or a dime of their money just because of legacy, political correctness, etc, besides the movie was fine if not average.

The internet is a terrible place full of terrible people and you must have claws if you want to survive.

I think the problem with the Starwars bit was that some at Disney/Lucasfilm tore into the fandom the way they did.. Like what happened from the fallout of Ghostbusters 2016, Oceans 8 and so on..

[Granyala]

After reading that small snippet from the interview it makes me think of how I jumped on the hate bandwagon a bit.. And after reading it I now know what a complete idiot I was for jumping on that bandwagon, and I am ashamed of that..

Yes, I too was too unilateral and harsh in my criticisms. While I still stand by the gist of them (telling more of the story in the actual game, giving more of a build-up and insight into what leads to such an event) I could have worded them better.

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I have nothing against Chris Metzen and yes, nobody should ever cross any lines and the critique of works should remain the critique of works and not translate into, say, "I am going to kill you".

But these days every time I hear somebody talking about the need to never cross lines and be polite on the Internet, it seems to me that we are hearing this because there is nothing else worth hearing. Yeah, yeah, people shouldn't cross lines, agree. Why are we talking about this again? Did someone cross any lines somehow especially violently in this case? No. Then why? I don't think "raising awareness" like this is useful. I never see anything particularly interesting emerge from endless talks on such topics, they are only maybe good for anecdotal stories and even those are similar to each other.

If I remember correctly, Miss Golden got torn apart on Twitter.
I'd call that crossing the line. It doesn't have to be physical violence.
Stating "fire them" or "XXX is an idiot / can't write for his life" is already disrespectful and crossing the line.

[Pull My Finger]

When even a guy like Chris Metzen, who built an incredible career and made a fortune on geeking out on stuff, publicly states that he's embarassed by "nerd culture" and criticizes people for not being able to tell fiction from reality, that should tell you something.

So many nerds, geeks and gamers out there are absolute failures in life, pathetic human beings and need to get their heads checked.

[kamuimac]

http://www.wowhead.com/news=286290/c...d-toxic-fandom

I believe people need to hear what he says. The man has good arguments that should be noticed.

customers have full rights to complain if product is subpar.

and wow is lately old outdated shitty cash grab - a shade of its former self.

so its natural that customers are complaining.

Metzen is just bitter he got fired and they hired Christie.

[grexly75]

Yes, I too was too unilateral and harsh in my criticisms. While I still stand by the gist of them (telling more of the story in the actual game, giving more of a build-up and insight into what leads to such an event) I could have worded them better.

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If I remember correctly, Miss Golden got torn apart on Twitter.
I'd call that crossing the line. It doesn't have to be physical violence.
Stating "fire them" or "XXX is an idiot / can't write for his life" is already disrespectful and crossing the line.

Yeah I think that an unfortunate thing for Blizzard placing so much of the story in outside sources.. But yeah the attacking and harassment towards Christie was completely uncalled for, and shows how bad parts of the community have become..

[Deleted]

If you are so overly invested into a game, movie, tv, show, comic, etc. that you get mad and toxic about it, you need to seek help.

If I had to decide how to deal with this at Blizzard, I would close all communication with the outside and only issue official statement concerning game releases and patch changes. Perhaps even urge employees to make all their social media private.

[Granyala]

Metzen is just bitter he got fired and they hired Christie.

If you listen to the Interview, he enjoys his retirement quite a bit and also likes to get to experience Blizzard games as a player now.

[Archmage Xaxxas]

When even a guy like Chris Metzen, who built an incredible career and made a fortune on geeking out on stuff, publicly states that he's embarassed by "nerd culture" and criticizes people for not being able to tell fiction from reality, that should tell you something.

At the same time, we should drop the "even a guy like Chris Metzen" outlook. He's actually created Warcraft as a broken mirror into real life problems. Like, you should feel a certain way about content/story- and then reflect on how you feel and why you feel that way.. Which will truly lead to you growing up more if you're open minded enough.

So much of WoW is far 'deeper' than people expect it to be. But I'll say this-- Sleeping people DON'T MAKE GAMES. Not at Blizzard.

These aren't your "typical" people. Chris Metzen in particular is a SMART guy. He's a deep thinker, and he wants to help humanity.

[grexly75]

If you are so overly invested into a game, movie, tv, show, comic, etc. that you get mad and toxic about it, you need to seek help.

If I had to decide how to deal with this at Blizzard, I would close all communication with the outside and only issue official statement concerning game releases and patch changes. Perhaps even urge employees to make all their social media private.

That is probably why we hear little from Blizzard is probably for that very reason, the utter toxicity of some parts of the community..

[Geeky]

customers have full rights to complain if product is subpar.

and wow is lately old outdated shitty cash grab - a shade of its former self.

so its natural that customers are complaining.

Metzen is just bitter he got fired and they hired Christie.

In your opinion...

What would he be bitter about? He had a great career there and then retired to focus on himself and his family.

[Sanguinerd]

He isn't saying DON'T CRITICIZE, he's saying there's a better way to do it - and if you can't be civil stfu. Though it is(and I'm sure he's aware of this aswel) a moot point.

It was a good interview though, I enjoyed listening.

[Granyala]

That is probably why we hear little from Blizzard is probably for that very reason, the utter toxicity of some parts of the community..

That and the fact that they burned their fingers when DEVs issued contrary statements after GC left and tried to step into the community engagement thing because they aren't all on the same page at all times.

[Aeula]

Toxicity should have been expected considering how low quality the War of Thorns was in-game. The short stories immediately retconned the entire thing, making the entire event rather pointless.

[s3ge]

I think he is right to some degree, harassment is unacceptable, but then again, pointing this out is pretty much pointless.

I would agree that the current Alliance favoritism of the writes has brought out some of the more toxic elements of the community. You have Alliance players on this forum who openly indulge in their rape and torture fantasies about Sylvanas, who would like to kill every man woman and child, solely based on their race and who call Horde players, quite ironically, Nazis on a daily basis.

It's a good example for what righteousness can do to otherwise good people, but I highly doubt that Blizzard intended to unleash this hatemob upon their world.

[grexly75]

That and the fact that they burned their fingers when DEVs issued contrary statements after GC left and tried to step into the community engagement thing because they aren't all on the same page at all times.

Ahh yeah that would not help either, especially how it does not take much to upset some of the community..