Many "creatives" confuse criticism with harassment, many "critics" confuse being an asshole with criticism.
Many "creatives" confuse criticism with harassment, many "critics" confuse being an asshole with criticism.
You're getting exactly what you deserve.
Lets say I am wrong and he left the event early. Maybe I am imagining things.
Still his own company pulled the same piece of shit behavior that he is complaining about. So where does he get off lecturing us?
At the time did he resign in protest? Did he say anything publicly? Nope.
Just reiterating that The Last Jedi is vile disgusting filth that shouldn't exist. It doesn't celebrate Star Wars, it defiles it.
I just feel like this is a lame attempt to deflect criticism. No sane person would support someone sending a death threat to a game developer, yet it feels like Metzen and Blizzard want to throw anyone who criticizes the game in with people who take it to absurd levels. It's a completely unfair tactic, yet gives them license to ignore valid feedback and a distraction from genuine concerns about the game.
When you work in a business setting and are in charge, one of the worst things you can do is send out a blanket email to address a problem you have with an individual. The people who are not a problem at all tend to get offended thinking they are being "called out", while the actual offendee often doesn't even realize they're the problem. It's a much better practice to address the problem with the individual.
I also feel like Blizzard has a recent track record of using what I call the "release few details/ignore criticism/deflect/placate" strategy when it comes to valid criticism and feedback of the game. Legiondaries, issues with AP farming, and the infestation of RNG into crafting and the loot table would be the best recent examples of changes made in Legion where they released few details initially (this gives them license to ignore feedback until the "complete" version is finished, which is often at launch when it's too late to change anything), ignored feedback that came in, then deflected/placated when the criticism became too loud to ignore. Players don't appreciate that type of development cycle, and the relationship between the community and the dev team has suffered significantly over the last few expansions because of it. That's on the dev team, not on the community. You can't invalidate the voices and feedback of a huge group of people because a handful of them probably honestly have some mental health issues going on and act out.
It is most likely because they know the criticism is valid, but they want to roll with it anyways. I mean take legendaries. Imagine if Ion came out and said: "- Guys! Guys. We KNOW it is a horrendous system, but that is what will keep you farm our shiny new mythic dungeons and world quests! It is all planned this way intentionally." With deflecting, they can play the "oops! who would have thought?! we've learned from this pinkypromise" - game over and over and over again.
While that's true, it doesn't seem like the recipe for success long term. These new systems or changes to existing ones I would imagine take a significant amount of dev time. When that time is expended on features which are unpopular among the community, I don't think anyone is winning.
Imagine a world where they gauged the popularity of potential new systems or changes to existing ones by reaching out to the community for feedback MUCH earlier in the process. You know, like before the expansion launches and changes could realistically be considered. They SHOULD do this. Now, there's a difference between doing what I suggest and running EVERY change by the community. However, they do exactly ZERO of what I'm suggesting now and I think that's sad. Systems like the Legiondary system and AP should be open for feedback and criticism throughout the WHOLE DESIGN PROCESS because the consequences of these systems not being right are massive. The current dev team is way too sensitive about their new pet systems and would NEVER do this, however. It's basically the exact opposite type of culture they currently have and doing a 180 might take an entirely new dev team, leader of that team, with fresh attitudes about their job.
What a treat. I just love Metzen. Per the film criticism segment, his WWE-style writing for Warcraft wasn't my thing, but it had charm, and he had such heart and soul. His choice to retire from an industry position in which he could've kept orbiting for years was the true measure of the man — and between the two Scott Johnson interviews, as someone from the same generation, I've come to appreciate the sharing of certain values even more.
Last edited by Celarent; 2018-08-13 at 06:47 PM.
This stems mostly from the top and trickles down. Hazzicostas and Afriasabi both have a history and sustained behavior of ignoring feedback in lieu of arrogantly pushing forward with whatever they believe is right for the game, regardless of feedback. Given their respective positions of leadership on the WoW team, it's no surprise that this effect would bleed into every aspect of the game. Anything from small issues and bugs reported during early beta, but still making it to the live version of the game, all the way up to major issues like flaws with AP, legendaries, or trying to remove flight from the game.
That doesn't mean they can't still get some things right. Legion was a marked improvement from WoD in many areas. It remains to be seen if BfA continues the trend or not. But I suspect it will suffer from some of the same fundamental flaws as Legion.
I don't get it when these companies use the internet knowing that it has been home to all kinds of trolls and online bullying since its inception, now want to claim that people can be toxic. Seriously? As a business, the value of using social media is the feedback loop. This is the reason why people use it. And just like amateur forums it is the businesses responsible to curate and manage their social media presence. I don't know if it is necessarily a good thing for individual employees to maintain high profile social media accounts outside their "work" accounts, but these days folks blur the line. Either way, social media has always been a blessing and a curse yet businesses can't pass it up because it is too valuable a tool. Complaining about social media which is open to the public is kind of missing the point. It is about communication. If players have concerns then address them. I think personally that the development process is more chaotic and more complex than one would expect and so it is not always easy to be fully open and transparent about everything in the game. Chris was pretty good at using Blizzcon to communicate the goals of the game and hints at future development. No reason that is not going to continue. But right now the forums and twitter aren't really being put to good use on a day to day opinion to help assuage certain things.
Meaning, most of us understand that WOW is an older game and that some things have to be done a certain way. It would be nice if Blizzard actually posted some of theihr own commentary of sorts on this. A developer commentary on gameplay would be nice for example. Many games do this.
But anyway, multi billion dollar companies complaining about communication management on social media "getting out of hand" means they aren't doing a good job managing it. That is why forums have had moderators since the beginning of the internet. A company with a social media presence should have a harassment policy, trolling policy and many other policies in place and understood internally when using social media. These are businesses worth many millions of dollars, they aren't helpless individuals like the average joe. And many times I look at this idea of "toxic fans" just as a PR move in order to "protect the brand" versus any serious threat from individuals on social media. In fact, in reality the issue is that these large companies pay or promote people to use social media who establish and maintain a positive buzz for the brand. Having folks who aren't shills give "honest" opinions is what they worry about because it may become viral and influential. Thus the need to label it as "toxic" in order to make it seem as any negative feedback is "bad".
And true to fact in the old days before social media the only means of knowing how well people liked your product was if they put their money out for it. And even with social media this hasn't changed.
Last edited by InfiniteCharger; 2018-08-13 at 09:42 PM.