Metzen Interview about Fandom and Toxicity

[Lilija]

lol - that's so true. BUT, it's also a sign that Blizz writing has hit folks in an emotional state, which means they are doing something right The whole point of art is to generate an emotional response. And the forums are gobbling it all up. Way more than anything before.

Disappointment is not the emotion you want your art to generate and this emotion seems to be quite common among people who dislike what is currently happening to the story.

I do not know if Blizzard wanted to piss off some part of the playerbase by this kind of storytelling but they for sure do not understand what they are dealing with given and responses they are giving to people's behavior.

And nerd culture has been like this since I remember. Being passionate about your hobby is not being toxic. In fact the so called toxicity is such a poor and abused term. Some people are just not emotionally mature enough to express their feelings and they lash out.

Anyway, if you poke at a fandom why do you wonder you are getting overemotional reactions? People are emotional creatures. The rational part of our brain is the youngest and doesn't do well when it comes to the unknown. Rational mind is very good with details and dealing with things we know. To tackle things we do not know we still have to use emotions and while being a powerful tool they operate on the hit and miss basis looking mostly for big picture patterns rather than detailed explanations of stuff.

[OreoLover]

"While I agree that harrasing writers is not ok, it' also unfair to lump genuine critics with toxic assholes. And let's face it, for every troll you at least get 10 people writing genuine criticism."

Perfectly summarised by a guy from Icy-Veins.

Not a chance in the world... just browse all the "lol bad story" comments all around here.

Even if those people post a good critique once, the next 50 posts are whining.

[JimmyHotz]

tl:dr, There is no excuse for being toxic, but be careful of white-knighting a conversation because that addition is just about as bad. Its ok to have an opinion and share it. Don't be an ass when you do, and don't be an ass in response.


I get the impression that your view point is just about as 'toxic', limited in view, and about as pointless as the people you are referring to.

I wont deny that there are a handful of oddball people that get so invested that when the story doesn't go 'their' way, they blow up and throw a tantrum. I dont deny that population exists or may even be a greater number then I would expect.

But as the internet has a habit of doing (and you are reflecting in your post) it turns topics like these into witch hunts and no 'actual' discussion takes place because people haven't grown up from flinging insults, challenges and threats, rather then actually discuss what they do or don't like about a product. People with actual criticism get gunned down and throw into the same group of morons that are actually only just harassing others. Post like yours that do just that are just as toxic and negative to conversations as those fanning the flames of other's anger.

Personally, I am on the side of not liking how the story played out. I am perfectly valid in my opinion (and would love to actually have someone change my mind if they could, rather then just spout the consistent retort of 'why don't you go do better' or 'you're just mad it didn't go your way' because those are senseless arguments that don't apply, not to mention I am not trying to argue, but discuss a point of view). It is good to think about the things we consume. Even more so in art. The stories, movies, games that get the gears turning in your brain are the best, or at least I believe.

But this story didn't do that for me. It was just came across as eye candy. I have been playing WoW since day one and I have learned to suspend my belief pretty far. But I feel Blizzard is testing that limit with blunt, linear story telling that doesn't engage me like it has before. Why a flying ship? To get out of harms way? have a dominating presence on the battle field? Ok, I can make up excuses in my head even if some of them are reaching. Why arcane canons to fire a spell she could do without the arcane canons? Its just purely visual fluff at that point. And while this is a mundane example, but its one of countless.

I can still enjoy the game outside of the storyline, so please don't come at with with 'why don't you quit then', but as a story line I have been invested in for years, its unfair to call someone a fanatic for being disheartened at what I view as a lessening in quality of story telling (and no you don't have to be a professional in the same field to be a critique, no one made that rule. If you have an opinion, you by definition, probably have criticisms about most things in your life).

The funny thing for me, its not the direction of the story that got me. Im not a alliance vs. horde player. I have enjoyed both sides of the battle. Its purely how its being portrayed. Shallow characters with predictable actions because they are so linear. Spur of the moment drama created obviously just to drive content vs. a story that drives content. Walking the knife edge of too much visual fluff. Some of these are personal gripes, some maybe limitations of telling a story through a mmo, but IMO, some of it was just lazy imagination.

The story could have gone in countless directions, but just to illustrate what I am talking about, I think my friend's suggestion hit me as the one I would have enjoyed the most, and the amusing part, it hardly even changed the story, but it did so much for it.

All the events could have been almost the same, but I think what would have given us so much more depth, actual in-game controversy (rather then arguing about the quality of the game) was at the end of 'Before the Storm' when Sylvanas was killing 'defectors'/civilians. Genn could still have had his opinion change of the Forsaken and their interaction with the living, but at that point divert for what was presented to us and pursue convincing Anduin of Sylvanas's pure evil and regardless of the horde had to remove Sylvanas from power. Anduin struggles with the decision but in the end chooses to attack Undercity first. The burning of Teldrassil came after in response.

This does a number of things:
Genn still has his revelation, but now understands his hatred lies with purely Sylvanas and not against the forsaken.
Anduin grows as a character as he actually takes the initiative. Chooses a path sightly questionable in his character of lawfully/good in that he is the instigator, but is still entirely in character as its for the good of many (even those outside of his own faction).
Sylvanas would have an excuse for all her behavior. Rather then looking like another rogue Horde faction leader with a personal agenda, it would have solidified the Horde in back Sylvanas, but there could have been question and concern about her use of the blight and lack of care in blighting even her own horde.

All the same events would have still taken place, just a slight reordering and I personally believe it would have given the story and characters far more depth and us players much more interesting concepts to think about.

That said, I don't know how the rest of BFA plays out. Maybe due to later decisions in the story it simply 'has' to be the the way it went and until that gap is filled, whats done is done and I just have to hope for a resolution.

But so far I haven't seen a single person really provide the reasons for why my belief the story-line has become shallow and it actually is engaging and what I am missing. Rather, both sides of the argument rather hurl insults at each other and call each other toxic nerds, uncultured idiots and the like. Either side of the argument has regressed to childish behavior.

Its the internet, guess I am not surprised, but still, I can't stop myself for wishing for better.

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I should have paraphrased this quote. Blehmeh, you hit it spot on.

Having an opinion makes me toxic? Is that not the very problem that our culture faces right now, that anyone with an opinion can be 'labelled' toxic do have their opinion dismissed?

Please elaborate as to how I was 'white-knighting' - I wasn't defending anyone's opinions, as I don't care about anyone's opinions save my own.

How am I turning this into a 'witch hunt' exactly? You claim that 'no real conversations take place' but you replied to my post. Is that not a conversation? I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around any of what you said.

Let me try and summarize my point a bit better: the community is becoming 'toxic' because people aren't getting their way. That's fine that people don't get what they want, but the problem stems from them screaming at the top of their lungs about something they don't like and the expectation is that we must listen to them. You're free to have an opinion. Do I have to listen? Certainly not. Dev's don't have to even acknowledge people's tweets or Facebook posts. If they do, they should be taking on the responsibility of engaging in conversation.

I guess in the end I'm a little ashamed of 'Nerd Culture' now too, since people now behave like Blizzard's storylines or Rian Johnson's writing is worse and more damaging than the Holocaust. Good grief.

[Eggroll]

lol - that's so true. BUT, it's also a sign that Blizz writing has hit folks in an emotional state, which means they are doing something right The whole point of art is to generate an emotional response. And the forums are gobbling it all up. Way more than anything before.

Appartently Blizz had no idea what they bargained for or they wouldn't be surprised or shocked by the response. Call me conservative or old school. I still stand firmly by my point that genocide, even a fictional one, should have no place in anything that is supposed to be "fun" or "entertaining", let alone a PG13 video game.

Threatening or harrassing Christie Golden is of course idiotic and bad. Online death threats should be reported to the authorities and criminal charges should be filed.

[Granyala]

I've always felt that not having all that knowledge beforehand was the whole idea. As the hero, you're being played and your leader isn't giving you the full story. They wanted to provoke that emotional reaction, and they succeeded. I like that approach, but I understand that it's not for everyone.

That's .... actually a good point. I never even thought about it this way.

[Skulltaker]

The issue there is the belief that such people are thrown there by the devs/writers/etc.

Spoiler: they aren't.

I didn't say that. But if you look at the backlash some of the criticism of some of the controversial movies these days had, many writers and producers were quick to blame all fans. So, it happens. "White Males" are to be blamed for the failure of Solo, right?

[OreoLover]

Anyway, if you poke at a fandom why do you wonder you are getting overemotional reactions?

There is often intent behind it, even if it's unclear (and the reaction is/isn't as calculated): https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...amer-interview

[Deleted]

I don' think it means what you think it means.

Yes it does.

[Skulltaker]

I've always felt that not having all that knowledge beforehand was the whole idea. As the hero, you're being played and your leader isn't giving you the full story. They wanted to provoke that emotional reaction, and they succeeded. I like that approach, but I understand that it's not for everyone.

I like it to, but you have to balance it carefully. Because if the audience gets the feeling they are deliberatly deceived for the point of a huge reveal, they will feel 'mistreated'.

[OreoLover]

I didn't say that. But if you look at the backlash some of the criticism of some of the controversial movies these days had, many writers and producers were quick to blame all fans. So, it happens. "White Males" are to be blamed for the failure of Solo, right?

Sorry, wasn't trying to say that it's your view, just pointing out that general (related) belief being an issue.

It's a shame when that kind of blame ends up back on fans (regardless of the fan type/motivation), and seems like it's usually about keeping the writers' jobs or excusing a weak performance.

[Cel]

I agree. I am not really a fan of her books but I think she is in a much higher class than to be just a writer in blizzard and write the things others tell her to. And about the criticizing, I meant only the storytelling. I remember that since cata night elf fans were constantly arguing everywhere on internet that blizzard is butchering them for other stories and until now nothing happened, actually it got worse. Storytelling is not simply about working on the lore and create the story. It requires passion, time and idea. If the writer doesn't like something, no matter how many times he/she is criticized about it, it won't have a good result even if he/she accept the criticism and make something about it. It won't be a good story.

I do write storys and yes, good stories are complex and full of thought. Partly what I was getting at in my post. I personally think (without a lot of proof) that Golden is actually probably overshadowed by Blizzard. She probably could be writing better books not connected to the franchise, but its hard to know when she is connected to WoW, directed by WoW direction, and essentially works on a team (which is great for some products, but I would reiterate that when it comes to art (and gaming/storytelling/Books walk that line even huge corporations like activision get involved and challenge that) doesn't work so well for art).

But back to story telling and I will admit to not knowing the full limitations of telling a story through a mmo, but constructive criticism is actually really well received by truly passionate artists. Its partly where new ideas come from and a great way of improving ones' self. Telling that artist/writer to go die is clearly not acceptable though.

[Lilija]

...that's the whole point, lol. Due to the iterative nature of storytelling in WoW, we don't know how the story is going to pan out.

The fact is we do not know how the story will end up. But we can do predictions based on past experiences. Let's say I personally am extremely skeptical about the possibility of this story to be any good from this point. And trust me, I would love to be proven wrong by Blizzard. But so far most of the stuff Blizzard has been throwing at me in the prepatch was pretty predictable (I didn't want to believe Sylvanas would do what she did but it was there in my head before the cinematic... and I really hoped for the endless possibilities that could have been better when it comes to storytelling). Yes, this is emotional but storytelling is all about emotions. Rational will fail in this matter and yet people expect rational arguments in this debate. Well, there won't be a lot of those because we simply do not know and have only predictions based on the past patterns (this is how emotions work btw). Yet, we cannot totally discard people who are simply worried about their hobby. To me it seems a bit like the people who do not share the worry about the quality of Blizzard's storytelling feel threatened by those negative opinions. Just as if deep inside they are also worried and are angry at those who speak loudly about those concerns. And while I am not ok with emotionally immature people lashing out personally at the devs I cannot say I do not understand what lies underneath their childish actions. When people show of their emotions it's good to stop for a moment to think what is really happening before shouting at them how dumb they are for feeling what they feel. Well, people cannot chose what they are feeling.

[Skulltaker]

Sorry, wasn't trying to say that it's your view, just pointing out that general (related) belief being an issue.

It's a shame when that kind of blame ends up back on fans (regardless of the fan type/motivation), and seems like it's usually about keeping the writers' jobs or excusing a weak performance.

Completly agree. Sorry if I came over as harsh.

[Faroth]

Well, I stand corrected, I misheard him originally. But the point actually still stands because he Directed Star Trek, while admitting he doesn't like Star Trek.

A great majority of things we love are created by people who aren't deeply invested in it prior to getting hired for the job. Though he didn't say he dislikes it, just that he wasn't a fan / didn't get it through the years.

Sometimes a fresh look is good. I'd personally disagree that Abrams' end result with Star Trek was a great result, though. I mean, it was a good movie. It would have arguably been a pretty fantastic Star Trek inspired new IP. But it wasn't a great Star Trek imo.

[Edgekidxxx]

On one hand I agree with him, on the other though I'm guessing they didnt mind these nerds when they were praising them.

Crazy nerds are not new, what is new is their ability to be able to voice that craziness.

While I agree that things like death threats and other threats of violence is going to far, we also need to be careful that disapproval isn't automatically labeled as toxicity.

Praise yields net positives, whereas fanaticism in a toxic form, breeds nothing but negativity. I think Chris pretty explicitly points out that its okay to not like something, but the minute you are trashing it and bringing down someones hard work and belittling it, with zero positivity, begets this real mob mentality. People should have differing opinions, and should voice those opinions, but you have to remember this is someones life work, and their job. To sit and do nothing but demean that day after day and pile on, is doing no one any good.

[Cel]

Metzen isn't an idiot, he's not saying that any criticism should be handwaved as "toxicity." It's okay to have an opinion but just be civil about it.

The entire impetus behind this podcast is to help people understand that kneejerk reactionism to things which haven't been thought through is exactly the reason toxicity exists. (You know, like going on a completely pointless tangent about things which have nothing to do with the topic at-hand...)

I wasn't questioning Metzen's message. I agree with you that he is a fairly intelligent guy and I don't think would ever question constructive criticism. The point I was making was the podcast didn't give that impression. Clearly just looking through this thread I can see that point is largely over-looked by people. It was reinforced to not be a jerk in your fanaticism, but the podcast did very little to address the toxicity of the community directed at the people that just want to express their opinion and talk about it.

My criticism wasn't of Metzen and his message, but the part that was left out and people arn't thinking about.

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"While I agree that harrasing writers is not ok, it' also unfair to lump genuine critics with toxic assholes. And let's face it, for every troll you at least get 10 people writing genuine criticism.

And as for the Last Jedi, the movie was absolute trash on every point. You can't ruin well established characters or bring up never before seen nonsense and expect people to take it. Calling actual fans who want the universe and its characters respected as nothing but trolls is just dishonest.

On a final note, while I dislike some parts of the BfA storyline, I'm hyped for other parts of it. As for the whole "toxic fandom", it's become an excuse that talentless hacks use for bad writing or plot, in most cases it is."
Perfectly summarised by a guy from Icy-Veins.

You have that post/article? I'd be interested in it. Its a topic I have been thinking about as well.

[OreoLover]

I wont deny that there are a handful of oddball people that get so invested that when the story doesn't go 'their' way, they blow up and throw a tantrum. I dont deny that population exists or may even be a greater number then I would expect.

All the same events would have still taken place, just a slight reordering and I personally believe it would have given the story and characters far more depth and us players much more interesting concepts to think about.

But so far I haven't seen a single person really provide the reasons for why my belief the story-line has become shallow and it actually is engaging and what I am missing.

I feel like that is a perfectly valid belief/opinion, and that people shouldn't spend time trying to convince you otherwise.

I also feel that Blizzard has a similar belief in their story, whether or not they can wrangle a vast majority supporting it.

[Lilija]

There is often intent behind it, even if it's unclear (and the reaction is/isn't as calculated): https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...amer-interview

I suspect there might be. Tho I would just like to point out that when you want to cause huge emotions that might be on the negative side within your fandom you really, really should know what you are doing because it is like playing with fire. When people are angry it's not their fault they feel that way. And they should look into their own anger before they lash out. But that is what emotionally mature people do. In every fandom there will be immature people and if you are not careful while creating outrage you will get burned by those unfortunate souls. If you want to create outrage you need to ready to disarm it soon enough for it to not cause any serious damage. I am not sure Blizzard is prepared for that if that was their intention. And if it wasn't their intention then it was simply a very bad decision.

[cparle87]

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.

Unfortunately, there's a big subsection of the players who go "not in the game it doesn't exist, therefore the story sucks because it doesn't make sense because if it's not in the game Blizz is bad for not putting it in the game."

[EbaumsTipster]

If you want to create outrage you need to ready to disarm it soon enough for it to not cause any serious damage.

That's why they spent thousands of dollars on "Old Soldier".