Metzen Interview about Fandom and Toxicity

[Jastall]

This is my main takeaway, I think I can almost forgive them for the Void Elves when I picture what their faces must have looked like when they got the memo.

And what's crazy is that they get blamed for it, even, like Golden was for the burning. Just because some have decided she's the scapegoat and the easy target for any WoW story criticism.

[Granyala]

Interesting, this suggests an element of premeditation on Sylvanas' part.

Not really, they had tons of partly enchanted NE Buildings, walking Trees etc to destroy. They even expected some ships to show up.

According to the Novellas, the plan was to THREATEN Darnassus with the Catapults right from the start but the plan was never to actually fire. Until the dying Elf conversation they wanted to capture Darnassus and use it as bait to fracture the Alliance (mostly via Gilnean vs Kaldorei struggle).
Fracturing the Alliance and ultimately conquering Stormwind to negotiate a peace on the Hordes terms THAT was the endgame. And a brilliant strategy, I have to admit.

Which is also why Sylvies burning is completely .. well.. out of character. She is intelligent enough to know that after such an atrocity, the Alliance would be unified like never before.

[Kokolums]

When blizzard made all of those commercials for bfa featuring people taking wow passion into real life situations, maybe they meant they wanted fans going after each other instead of criticizing the writers and devs.

[Blayze]

When blizzard made all of those commercials for bfa featuring people taking wow passion into real life situations, maybe they meant they wanted fans going after each other instead of criticizing the writers and devs.

Corporate Policy 101: Everything is permitted unless the company would get sued.

[Zantos]

While this can be true, your fav character can also die, and it totally ruins a show for you.

I'm looking at you Bates Motel...

I'm not arguing with your point though, people are going waaay too far with their criticisms. It's uncivilized.

Going into threats is way too far. At the same time, Blizzard is giving off the vibe that people have no right to criticize the game or story at all. They tout how "you don't know the full story yet!" and how "you should wait until you do". While at the same time, key elements to what we do know are scattered across several sources. Then they wonder why people get upset. Maybe if they told the complete story up until this point, in one place, people could make a more informed decision. Not only that, but you don't need to know the full story to hate its current events.

Over all, I feel a lot of idiocy is going on on both sides. People going too far and threatening and Blizz / devs going to far to discredit and ignore everyone who disagrees with them.

[Kyphael]

Eh, I get it, but gamers are passionate. Me personally, seeing people lose their shit over a game and attack each other is funny. It shows they have passion. Do people go overboard? Sure, but we all need to be more thick-skinned. If you get called out by your fan base, defend yourself and then keep moving forward. You won't please everyone but the more rabid fans also can't help themselves too much, we're all driven by emotion. I'm sure Metzen has lost his shit before and regrets it. That's what life is all about, it's a journey, not a destination. As long as you learn from it, it's all good. It's not like we can all make a solemn vow to be better for the rest of our days, we can strive to be but human error is a cycle that doesn't end until we're either too old to care about anything or gone.

Good to know he's doing better, though.

[Blayze]

Going into threats is way too far. At the same time, Blizzard is giving off the vibe that people have no right to criticize the game or story at all. They tout how "you don't know the full story yet!" and how "you should wait until you do".

"Wait and see" has been their go-to excuse since before Cataclysm launched.
It's no surprise people are sick of it, when they know it's going to be bullshit.

[Theoris]

The amount of entitlement and lack of self-awareness in the comments of that Wowhead article reminds me why I hate this community sometimes. I especially love the guy who implies harassing the devs/writers is A-OK because people are just "expressing themselves".

[Cel]

It’s pretty obvious that the storylines in BFA are made to stir up the community and create a buzz. In that sense Blizzard has fulfilled their goals.

People keep saying this, but its fundamentally wrong. If you are simply stating 'no press is negative press' and stating that this is giving the game free advertisement, I can't argue. You are correct.

But if you are trying to say that the storylines in WoW are interesting enough that we get engaged, pick sides, and actually hash out our opinions regarding the actual 'in game' story, I would say you are 100% wrong.

No rational person of what I have seen (or at least very few) have been stirred up and are debating what actually happens in the story. Some people are invested and scream at the authors death threats for destroying their beloved city/character/story, but they are extremities and any rational human being would just casually ignore them.

I think it would be a positive if we were abuzz about how we're upset the horde are attacking, or how the Alliance did this, or the horde did that. If the story was complex and lead to those discussion, great.

But people arn't riled up about a good story and are having interesting debates (which would have been the positive outcome) but rather, people are riled up about weather the story is even tolerable or not, and what standard should we set a mmo to in delivering a story (which I would argue is far less of a positive. Although, once again, in marketing at least, there is no negative press in some companies point of view).

- - - Updated - - -

I don't believe it was his intent to say that artists should be immune. Blizzard has fucked up many times over the course of WoW and they have openly admitted that quite often. That also goes for story elements, one incident that comes to mind is how lame Arthas was being portrayed back in Wrath, when he would pop in at all kinds of moments but almost never actually DO anything threatening except blah blah. They definitely took that to heart and tried to do different ... well... they fell off the other side of the horse with Deathwing which I saw ... umm twice, I think, before Dragon Soul.

What he means is also not to deflect by only talking about what we like. I believe what he wants is that we talk about what we like in addition to voicing critical opinions.

You know, when I play the flute, I know that I make mistakes. I know that my tone is not awesome (only 2 years in), yet my flute teacher doesn't crush me under her heel and criticizes me back into the stone age. She gives a mixture of feedback, some things that I can improve (and suggestions about how) and some things she genuinely liked in order to encourage me further.

Blizzards artists are not adult students like me, they are battle hardened professionals but they are not terminators. They have feelings like you and me. Personal insults and overly dramatic criticism hurt them just as they would hurt us. All Metzen wanted to say is "please keep it in mind that you are still dealing with human beings (even if it's just the face of a bit corporation you see) and behave accordingly."

I agree with most of what you said with one specific difference. I don't think constructive criticism has to involve positive statements. There are times when people simply can't find positives in something (legitimately or not) and this doesn't exclude them from being able to criticize the parts they don't like.

The key point of constructive criticism is for starters:
It can't include a personal attack. Any constructive criticism that involves personal attacks immediately invalidate the criticism, as in my mind, the person just invalidated their intelligence and by definition is not 'constructive'.
The criticism has to have a base. Without an example or proof of the persons opinion, no information can be gleaned other then personal bias. With at least an example, a artist can discuss the criticism, come to a conclusion based off of it, and then make the personal choice weather it will effect their own work or not.
And the best constructive criticism (although not necessarily a rule) includes ideas and examples to A. help shape the critic's POV, as well as B. give the Artist some ideas to work with and once again, it is up to the artist to decide weather the points brought to their attention are valid or not.

These are all just my personal beliefs on the matter. As a person that writes and draws avidly, these are the types of criticism I look forward to and benifit from, even if there is not positive part that's simply there to preen my own feathers.

I believe good artists can discern what good criticisms are and negative comments are though, and a reasonable adult really shouldn't need someone else speaking out for them, stating "Be kind everyone!".

People should naturally be mature about things, but yah... I know... I don't live in a fantasy world, so both sides need to have some understanding and also grow some thicker skin.

[Mr chub]

I kind of think overmoderation played a part in this problem... before everyone kinda was a basted but that worked since everyone was a bastard. Then mods came along and rewarded one type of basterd and made that bastard feel morally superior over time this cycle repeats till we get here.

[Divinexve]

NO
I like being a meanie
HMPF >

[sam86]

so... next time he wants warcraft fans to 'forget' for example the stupid characters tone shift in every expansion because lazy writing ? or what about his own mistake about draenei retcon that he himself forgot, he prefer us to 'ignore' that too?
Does he know that if actually cared about the game same as us, he won't fall to half of those mistakes ? or he is under pressure even in bed or something ?
Is he complaining about his job ? I don't understand that point, and he compares to the worst star wars movie ?

[Sanguinerd]

so... next time he wants warcraft fans to 'forget' for example the stupid characters tone shift in every expansion because lazy writing ? or what about his own mistake about draenei retcon that he himself forgot, he prefer us to 'ignore' that too?
Does he know that if actually cared about the game same as us, he won't fall to half of those mistakes ? or he is under pressure even in bed or something ?
Is he complaining about his job ? I don't understand that point, and he compares to the worst star wars movie ?

You don't really seem to understand what he's saying in the interview(probably I think because English isn't your native tongue).

I'd listen again and maybe pay attention this time.

[sam86]

I don't believe it was his intent to say that artists should be immune. Blizzard has fucked up many times over the course of WoW and they have openly admitted that quite often. That also goes for story elements, one incident that comes to mind is how lame Arthas was being portrayed back in Wrath, when he would pop in at all kinds of moments but almost never actually DO anything threatening except blah blah. They definitely took that to heart and tried to do different ... well... they fell off the other side of the horse with Deathwing which I saw ... umm twice, I think, before Dragon Soul.

What he means is also not to deflect by only talking about what we like. I believe what he wants is that we talk about what we like in addition to voicing critical opinions.

Except they stopped that, I followed WoD beta closely (wasn't sure i should play or not, i admit i was butthurt from SoO and really HATED playing, but i know i was going back again), and from what i read/saw, most of feedback was ignored (like the pvp zone), and the same goes for legion (again with how bad artifact farming will be), and seems they going the same way in BFA
They might used to care to listen to us in feedback, but not anymore, in fact the time they 'do' listen is when they actually going to do something anyway and someone happens to ask about it
Blizzard became immune, they don't listen, and the current game designer Ion loves hearing his own echo, never listen to criticism, and if he ever 'admits' a mistake, he will admit it in form 'i'm sorry it was too good for u' way, he is the reason i stopped even watching blizz q&a, something that i followed since ever

[Khaza-R]

Not really, they had tons of partly enchanted NE Buildings, walking Trees etc to destroy. They even expected some ships to show up.

According to the Novellas, the plan was to THREATEN Darnassus with the Catapults right from the start but the plan was never to actually fire. Until the dying Elf conversation they wanted to capture Darnassus and use it as bait to fracture the Alliance (mostly via Gilnean vs Kaldorei struggle).
Fracturing the Alliance and ultimately conquering Stormwind to negotiate a peace on the Hordes terms THAT was the endgame. And a brilliant strategy, I have to admit.

Which is also why Sylvies burning is completely .. well.. out of character. She is intelligent enough to know that after such an atrocity, the Alliance would be unified like never before.

I sort of have to disagree with your last part. Being intelligent doesn't mean you don't ever let your emotions take control of you. As for the out-of-character remark, I think its important to remember that individuals are never static. A Sylvanas who was fixated on revenge might have been much more cool and methodical. While a Sylvanas who has lost her end-goal might be more erratic and unpredictable.

[Kaleredar]

Except they stopped that, I followed WoD beta closely (wasn't sure i should play or not, i admit i was butthurt from SoO and really HATED playing, but i know i was going back again), and from what i read/saw, most of feedback was ignored (like the pvp zone), and the same goes for legion (again with how bad artifact farming will be), and seems they going the same way in BFA
They might used to care to listen to us in feedback, but not anymore, in fact the time they 'do' listen is when they actually going to do something anyway and someone happens to ask about it
Blizzard became immune, they don't listen, and the current game designer Ion loves hearing his own echo, never listen to criticism, and if he ever 'admits' a mistake, he will admit it in form 'i'm sorry it was too good for u' way, he is the reason i stopped even watching blizz q&a, something that i followed since ever

They used to listen to feedback when they made raids that only catered to 5% of the playerbase and that was the entirety of a patch's content?

When is this "used to?" You keep talking in nebulous terms. What specific examples of enormous gameplay systems did blizzard "listen to players" for by scrapping or majorly overhauling over the course of a beta?

In fact I'd say that listening to players too much has hurt blizzard in the past. WotLK heroic dungeons were too easy; so they made hard cata dungeons, but suddenly those were too hard, so they made joke difficulty dungeons in MoP that have continued to be jokes to this day.

Reputation was too easy to grind up in cataclysm because you could just use a tabard, so they tied it to daily quests in MoP, but then people complained that there were TOO MANY daily quests, so they removed them at the end of the game in MoP to replace with straight grinding.

Everyone loved flying in BC, WotLK, Cata, and up until the end of MoP until a minority got a stick up their butt about how it was "ruining WoW" despite having been in the game for longer than WoW existed without flying. So what did they do in WoD? Made it a godawful grind that they strung players along with until the last content patch. Then they did a similar thing in Legion, and are going to do it again in BFA. All because of a vocal minority bitching about the way other people played the game.


It becomes a matter of "says who?" People can say they don't enjoy a system, but without any game making insight or development knowledge, how in the hell can they possibly make good suggestions for game design moving forwards? The most helpful feedback they can offer, ultimately, is "we don't like this because of this, you should probably change it to something else" because a claim of them instead saying "You should make it like THIS" isn't coming from any actual platform of knowledge or experience. And there are a lot of armchair video game designers around.

It's like someone saying they don't like a cake a baker made versus telling the baker what they think would make a better cake without any actual baking knowledge.

[Deleted]

Suddenly this entire board is P.h.D Psychologists.

[Doctor Amadeus]

WoW is something Chris Metzen was chief in building, so if the community is toxic, then he and the developers are responsible for that too, right along with all the success and money they made.

[Cel]

WoW is something Chris Metzen was chief in building, so if the community is toxic, then he and the developers are responsible for that too, right along with all the success and money they made.

While I do believe Metzen was a bit too cavalier in his statements about criticism, I agree with him and others that personal attacks are not constructive or acceptable) But he didn't really touch both sides of the argument and at least left me with an impression that criticism has to be very carefully pruned to not hurt anyone's feelings (which I do disagree with. There's only so much tip-toeing a person can do and we live in a competitive business market where artists and authors far superior to those at Blizzard arn't making tons of money with a secure job as they are. They should be held to some standard. Its up for debate what that standard would be).

But all that said, I believe it entirely unfair to blame Chris Metzen for internet behavior. Thats a pretty big stretch. There are toxic people in this community and out of it. Thats just the nature of anonymity over the internet. Saying he is responsible for that, or implying that the money he made was unjustified due to this, is.... well, just foolish.

[Doctor Amadeus]

While I do believe Metzen was a bit too cavalier in his statements about criticism, I agree with him and others that personal attacks are not constructive or acceptable) But he didn't really touch both sides of the argument and at least left me with an impression that criticism has to be very carefully pruned to not hurt anyone's feelings (which I do disagree with. There's only so much tip-toeing a person can do and we live in a competitive business market where artists and authors far superior to those at Blizzard arn't making tons of money with a secure job as they are. They should be held to some standard. Its up for debate what that standard would be).

But all that said, I believe it entirely unfair to blame Chris Metzen for internet behavior. Thats a pretty big stretch. There are toxic people in this community and out of it. Thats just the nature of anonymity over the internet. Saying he is responsible for that, or implying that the money he made was unjustified due to this, is.... well, just foolish.

Yes, and yes that is something to blame on Chris and the Developers, that Toxicity made them very rich men, you can't accept the good without the bad, there is a price to everything, and what it cost him is what he is complaining about.