Horrible ambassadors...

[arkanon]

While I also mostly agree with your points, in particular with wishing Streamers would actually just be genuine (or, you know, just play video games to have for playing video games without giving endless critiques about them unless they're actually doing a review video), I do have to make a quick correction to your TB statement.

TB, if memory serves, quit during Cataclysm when Firelands released, and it wasn't because he felt the game was too easy. In fact, he was one of the few people openly praising how overly difficult Heroics and Raiding was during 4.0. What lead him to quit, however, was when Blizzard did blanket nerfs to said Heroics and Raids. It's around that time that TB decided to quit being a WoW streamer, and instead make the jump to universal PC gaming (and frankly one of the best decisions he ever made, if you ask me). He also made it very clear that he quit WoW because he didn't agree with the direction the game was taking, and wasn't going to make content for a video game he no longer cared for, as he felt that would be determinal to the quality of this videos.

It's THAT mindset in particular that wish more streamers would take. If you don't like the video game you're playing, just stop, and play something else. But that kind of goes into what Relapses is saying - people will continue to stream and make videos filled with negativity on games they no longer enjoy, because that's what makes them money. I understand they need to make ends meet, and obviously eat, but I guess for me personally, I'd start looking for another career path if the job I was doing for a living required me to be overly negative all the time.

Yes, like i said, he quit because the hardest content was "too easy" (post nerf) when he was not even completing that content anyway - that's what i said, or at least tried to. He was heavily criticized for it at the time as well. To use current difficulties for simplicity sake, its like Blizzard reducing the overall difficulty of Mythic raids by 15%, and you quitting and saying "this is bullshit, they are making the game too easy, i quit!" when you havnt set foot in heroic, let alone mythic. Anyway, it was used as an example, but there are others.

I remember one of the big FPS streamers had a really interesting youtube video i watched (i dont watch his streams). He felt stuck playing CSGO (i think) which he hated, but felt obligated to play it. he took a break, then came back playing games HE wanted to play - suddenly his smile was back, he was having a blast, and seemed really happy - shock horror, his viewership went UP. Turns out people quite like watching people ENJOY playing the game rather than suffering through it complaining and bitching.

[llewllew]

It's really true. The way to get clicks is to shit on the game but never actually quit playing.

[kaminaris]

I remember one of the big FPS streamers had a really interesting youtube video i watched (i dont watch his streams). He felt stuck playing CSGO (i think) which he hated, but felt obligated to play it. he took a break, then came back playing games HE wanted to play - suddenly his smile was back, he was having a blast, and seemed really happy - shock horror, his viewership went UP. Turns out people quite like watching people ENJOY playing the game rather than suffering through it complaining and bitching.

Wow, this is some mind linking right there, I was literally discussing this in very similar words with a friend on discord like an hour ago.

People need to realize that there are many games out there and constantly bitching about the one you feel obliged to you is eventually ruin your mental health (asmon lol).

[odamienskii]

I've been lurking around some Youtubers and Twitch streamers just checking the game out again, as I might return, and something I realized was how selfish, self righteous, and anti-wow these influencers can be. Also extremely negative, and no doubt that has to do with baiting clicks, but I think it's had a very big impact on the health of the game. Am I saying there's nothing wrong with the game? No, but one big difference I see is in these popular personalities acting as if the game is developed for them personally, and are very jaded, elitist, and it's just a very bad look for the game overall. Instead of fostering players, they really just turn people off of the game. Yea, I know, "who watches this, and just don't watch them it doesn't matter, right?" I think it's been huge for a decade now, and I'm seeing the result in the community, when these fools act like privileged children in the game, others follow suit and act like it's ok. Wow is at it's best when there's a healthy community integration, and that doesn't mean a perfect wow world, it just means the people actually want to play to have fun with each other, and not ram it into the ground because it's not what they want. It's actually gross. There was so many good ambassadors of the game early in wow's life. These days, it's petulant children looking to make a buck, and not giving a damn about the game.

Or maybe these elitst players are what made wow great in the first place, you say about wow not being a perfect world, thats the problem, blizzard have been trying to make it perfect for the masses, handing them everything, nerfing everything, making the content alt/noob freindly, that spits in the face of what made wow great, elitism was what held wow together. you will say it wasnt but it was, that strive for greatness, putting the effort in, nowadays everything is done for you, and if you dont enchant? its ok the guildbank has a stack of 1000 here have one they are only 9g. feasts in game made to accommadate the players who dont have time to farm materials. what am i talking about? feasts are great! they are great if you are casual, having food used to be a fundamental requirement for top players, it was a way of weeding out the bads from top end guilds, turn up without food/flask? your bad, you shouldnt be in our top 100 world guild.

of course every single one of you casual players will disagree with me, course you will, but what was wrong with wow how it was? want to turn up without food? only log in after work? then join a social guild, you dont need to be endgame mythic next to the elite players within weeks, thats not why you log in is it? you log in for social and "fun" its not fun for elite players to play with players who wouldnt even bring there own food, infact its downright irritating because the simple fact is elitists care how good they are in the game, where socials / casuals will say things like "its just a game"

To an elitst it wasnt just a game. its life. mock if you like but thats what it was. doesnt make it any less true and who are you to say "go outside" when someone chooses to play 16 hours a day then suddenly logs in and finds the game is souless and empty and there is nothing for them to be elitist about. great for you! shitty for elitests, thats why these influencers are so bitter towards the game, blizzard destroyed what they used to enjoy. if your casual then wow currently will be an amazing place for you.

[lordjust]

... I'll ask again though how is it solely Blizzards fault the community is like this? If it's because they allowed more solo play, I'd have to disagree with that assessment...

It isn't about solo play but blizzard created systems that enables a more toxic behaviour. Games like FF14 show how you can influence your player's behaviour. They created a more personal story for the player so that he cares for the story and the NPC and through the story they show you that being nice to others is a good thing. Also there is mandatory group content as part of the main story quest so people have to learn to play with other people and be nice enough to them to finish the content. WoW on the other hand reduced all group content more and more. You can solo group quests, dungeon quests and raid quests are optional so there's no need to interact with other people to learn social skills or create a community. In addition Blizzard shows the players through their reward structure that everything has to be done as fast as possible to get the best rewards. Torghast is designed to be done quick, m+ is designed to be done as fast as possible and there's so much mandatory content you have to do daily to not fall behind other players that you'd want to do everything as fast as possible. As a result of that people want overgeared people for group content to minimize the chance of failure which creates a negative feedbackloop where people with lower itemlevel can't get into groups to do content that rewards higher itemlevel which creates a market for boosting people who in turn spam their service everywhere.

So Blizzard created systems and reward structures that reward a certain playstyle and a somewhat toxic behaviour with mostly no repercussions. If you join a m+ run and it doesn't goes well after the first pack is pulled, the reward system tells you that run isn't worth it anymore and you wasted your time in searching a group, getting everyone to the dungeon and using consumables. If someone then pulls a pack or the boss out of frustration or to fuck the other people in the group and make sure the run is ruined for them too there's no punishment for whoever pulled the packs and forced a wipe because you can't prove it was in ill intent.

[arkanon]

Wow, this is some mind linking right there, I was literally discussing this in very similar words with a friend on discord like an hour ago.

People need to realize that there are many games out there and constantly bitching about the one you feel obliged to you is eventually ruin your mental health (asmon lol).

Ill try find the video he released about it - the name Summit rings a bell, but im really not a streamer guy so i could be way off base there. I know summit is a top tier streamer, so the story checks out - ill still try find the video and link it if i do. It was honestly quite sad, but with a happy finish. When he 'returned' he played Sea Of Thieves expecting noone to watch - and was SWARMED with support, followed by an increase in views because he was having so much fun. To be fair, this is more of a streamer thing rather than youtube. Personally, these days i have limited time to PLAY games, let alone watch someone else play, and if i did feel the urge to watch someone else play a game, by god they better be entertaining and buzzing with energy.

I cannot get my head around why someone would sit and watch a streamer suffer through a game they fucking hate - maybe im just old, but i honestly just dont get it.

[Tarba]

You have the communauty you deserve.
Those influencers are not influents. They just say what the people listening to them want to hear.

[trandwidther]

lets get something straight here, i have been criticising blizzard and their utterly moronic design choices and clueless developer decision making for a solid 8-9 years at this point,.......

That is deeply sad. If you hate it that much then stop playing it.

But I'm not really buying what you are saying. You are using much the same language as a relatively small group of streamers and it clear you have been heavily influenced even if subconsciously.

- - - Updated - - -

You have the communauty you deserve.
Those influencers are not influents. They just say what the people listening to them want to hear.

That's not how social media works. Social media pushes high engagement videos-which broadly speaking means highly negative rants do better. Eventually everyone notices this and makes negative videos to make money-if that is all that they want.

Eventually asmongold and co began to notice they are killing the game that made them rich and begin to pull back to some extent. It is very cynical and disingenuous. Sad thing is a bunch of other people saw how much money they could make shitting on the game so now its not clear whether the process can be reversed.

- - - Updated - - -

Games like FF14 show how you can influence your player's behaviour.

I do not want my behaviour influenced. I do not want the Chinese social credits thought control system in a video game.

[m4Zzo928]

That's not how social media works. Social media pushes high engagement videos-which broadly speaking means highly negative rants do better. Eventually everyone notices this and makes negative videos to make money-if that is all that they want.

Eventually asmongold and co began to notice they are killing the game that made them rich and begin to pull back to some extent. It is very cynical and disingenuous. Sad thing is a bunch of other people saw how much money they could make shitting on the game so now its not clear whether the process can be reversed.

Yep, precisely. One of the issues is we didn’t know, and to an extent still don’t know the far reaching effects of social media. We don’t want to be rid of the tech though understandably, so we need to take it for what it’s turned into at surface level, and that is sensationalist tabloid esk media. It’s no coincidence the content creators are using their face in the thumbnail making some outrageous facial expressions that are not appropriate for the videos, and yes drama induced videos are prioritized as they get more clicks. What I find for a better social media experience is to monitor against the algorithm, but that’s not the easiest thing for people who aren’t even consciously aware of it to do.

This then creates hyper echo chambers, where say Asmongold’s audience thinks the majority of WoW players think exactly like him. The streamers aren’t just reflecting back the playerbase. That’d be impossible to begin with, and extremely distorted at best. What a lot of streamers do is act as if their opinion is gold, no pun, and this then creates a bunch of loyal crusaders that will fight any outside opinions. it’s been re-iterated in this thread. “You have no place to tell content creators how to think”. No, I don’t but this is implying we just have to accept it like drones without our own thoughts. It’s really, I mean when you take a step back and see how influential they can be, it’s a very, very big responsibility they have, and to my original point, a lot of them have fumbled it, don’t care about their influence, and just care about themselves.

[Sanguinerd]

What amuses me is seeing someone like Pyromancer screech and cry about Blizzard and how their lore makes it impossible for him to make videos acting like the community is dependent on him doing so or something, as if it's highly requested or even demanded... narcissistic twat. Which most of them are anyway. No matter how much you adore Preach or whomever they're all in love with themselves and think their opinion is worth more than others which only gets reinforced by the army of yes-men they surround themselves with.

The thing that annoys me the most is someone like Bellular though who talks trash about WoW every. single. freaking. day. just fucking move on already you pathetic child.

I just wish Blizzard would quit giving them special attention with interviews and shit, just make the old Q&A videos and leave social media out of it as much as possible.

[trandwidther]

This then creates hyper echo chambers, where say Asmongold’s audience thinks the majority of WoW players think exactly like him.

Yeah I notice this happens with other things. Politics videos tend to be filled with extreme far right types. Covid stuff is filled with covid deniers. These are a very small % of the population generally. You would think that they were the majority if you just looked at social media because of sample bias.

- - - Updated - - -

What amuses me is seeing someone like Pyromancer screech and cry about Blizzard and how their lore makes it impossible for him to make videos acting like the community is dependent on him doing so or something, as if it's highly requested or even demanded... narcissistic twat.

LOL like any one needed his utterly crazy videos making up wildly inaccurate speculations.

Hell, now I'm thinking it is a good thing we might be jettisoning some of the more toxic elements from warcraft.

[m4Zzo928]

What amuses me is seeing someone like Pyromancer screech and cry about Blizzard and how their lore makes it impossible for him to make videos acting like the community is dependent on him doing so or something, as if it's highly requested or even demanded... narcissistic twat. Which most of them are anyway. No matter how much you adore Preach or whomever they're all in love with themselves and think their opinion is worth more than others which only gets reinforced by the army of yes-men they surround themselves with.

The thing that annoys me the most is someone like Bellular though who talks trash about WoW every. single. freaking. day. just fucking move on already you pathetic child.

I just wish Blizzard would quit giving them special attention with interviews and shit, just make the old Q&A videos and leave social media out of it as much as possible.

Selfish ego-maniacs they turn into, and then people think that kind of behavior is ok. It's just practical to understand humans as being sheep to an extent, and I don't say that in a derogatory sense, but the sheep herder needs to know that, and take it somewhat seriously, because it has far reaching effects, and the WoW of today has suffered for it. The best guild leaders I've had, ran guild events that had nothing to do with progression, and were happy and giving to their guildmates. Think of these streamers, just collecting gold from people, focusing on just their extreme goals rather than giving back in any capacity. These millionaire streamers. What exactly have they given back? or provide to the community, or playerbase? Nothing I see. It's a one way relationship.

[jazen]

I'm always amazed at the entirety of 'influencing.' Who is dumb enough to pay to watch other folks play a game, or listen to and be influenced by them? Whether it's gaming, fashion, music....just no clue how sheeplike most people have become.

[Logwyn]

I'm always amazed at the entirety of 'influencing.' Who is dumb enough to pay to watch other folks play a game, or listen to and be influenced by them? Whether it's gaming, fashion, music....just no clue how sheeplike most people have become.

Don't forget the dollars that people throw at them as well.

[Recovery]

Having studied philosophy, I understand game theory, and irl games that are played at various layers of our reality. The reality is Wow can't appease everyone, it's impossible, they only create something that will appeal to the widest demographic they can, and sometimes they get it right, and sometimes they don't, sometimes it's right for half a year, sometimes it's bad for a year. It's a guess, and if anyone else noticed too, they flip flop ideas, over and over, like a cycle, and it's usually followed by the opposite of what a previous expansion's systems were. More complicated systems followed by less complicated systems, more powerful classes followed by less powerful classes. It's a cycle, pendulum swing, and there's no other game to play here, it's the best one for a long term game. One may say they just have to do "this" and stick with it, but guaranteed that would be the worst thing, and shorten the lifespan significantly.

So the communication Blizzard management has given to the community has been bad, I completely agree, and I hope it gets cleaned up. a proper understanding of the game cycle would be better just explained and accepted for people who want to play the game.

Communication is just the thing that blizz is worst at. Take shadowlands for example:

"We want your choice to matter. We want you to be locked into that choice so that you can feel that your choice matters."

Player: Were positive that you guys are going to mess this up. After all, you always do. Better have a ripcord to pull just in case.

Blizzard: No rip cord.

Players: Yeah were definitely feeling our choice mattering. My covenant is doing 10% less burst damage than this other covenant in pvp. Necro shield is bonkers. Players stepping into the arena with 100K HP shields.

Blizzard: Rip cord deployed! Okay, We'll let you swap freely between covenants. You were right, we were wrong. Too bad we didnt realize this before we lost half of our subs.

Blizzard: Hey guys, if you could also just pretend that conduit energy didnt exist in the game for a year, we would appreciate that. TIA.

[Bladesyphon]

Yes, like i said, he quit because the hardest content was "too easy" (post nerf) when he was not even completing that content anyway - that's what i said, or at least tried to. He was heavily criticized for it at the time as well. To use current difficulties for simplicity sake, its like Blizzard reducing the overall difficulty of Mythic raids by 15%, and you quitting and saying "this is bullshit, they are making the game too easy, i quit!" when you havnt set foot in heroic, let alone mythic. Anyway, it was used as an example, but there are others.

I remember one of the big FPS streamers had a really interesting youtube video i watched (i dont watch his streams). He felt stuck playing CSGO (i think) which he hated, but felt obligated to play it. he took a break, then came back playing games HE wanted to play - suddenly his smile was back, he was having a blast, and seemed really happy - shock horror, his viewership went UP. Turns out people quite like watching people ENJOY playing the game rather than suffering through it complaining and bitching.

I think we're both agreeing on the same thing, I was just correcting some minor details. It was more complicated than how you expressed it - at the end of the day, TB essentially felt like Blizzard was taking away the achievements earned by people who were grinding their teeth against the hardest content when Blizzard nerfed it to essentially appease the casual playerbase who were complaining the game was too difficult.

I agree that the situation of nerfing things in Cataclysm was also more complicated than that as well, but TB even stated that he hadn't really been enjoying WoW at the point of Cataclysm, as he was getting severely burned out with being a content creator for that one game, as it was around that time everyone and their dogs were throwing their hat into becoming WoW content creators.

And as you said - after he quit WoW and moved onto other games he actually enjoyed, he went from being "That one brittish WoW guy" to literally Youtube's biggest and well known gaming critic, and went onto do great many good things for the industry as a whole (since he wasn't afraid to call out bullshit developers were doing when it was warranted).

Either way, we're both in agreement of how we want Youtube and streamers to behave, but sadly like Relapses pointed out - what we want is from a bygone era. Now people feed off negativity, and want validation for their own opinions on hating something, and Streamers being creatures of profit, are all about that, which is just leading to an echo chamber of everything is terrible, nothing is good. It is what it is, though, and it's why the only things I watch that are even remotely close to being streamer based are AGDQ/SGDQ, and occasionally one of Projared's lets play videos since, as we both agree, he plays video games he actively enjoys (or games that he doesn't, but still makes videos that are actually fun and entertaining to watch, rather than thirty minute bitchfests).

[Thenatural]

Negativity bias is incredibly strong and a tool used in pretty much every social media space from small influencers to massive e-celebs, this bias is well-researched and has been used by advertisers and marketers for basically ever.

There are a number of studies that suggest that people's opinion on a piece of media is heavily impacted by not just the influence of a content creator, but by comments and their tone.

A study was done that had groups of people read an article about biotechnology and then had the read the comments and discussion around it before responding to a short questionnaire. There were two groups, one group that read positive and civil comments about the subject matter, and a group that read uncivil negative comments. Here is a snip of the results:

Uncivil comments not only polarized readers, but they often changed a participant's interpretation of the news story itself.

In the civil group, those who initially did or did not support the technology — whom we identified with preliminary survey questions — continued to feel the same way after reading the comments. Those exposed to rude comments, however, ended up with a much more polarized understanding of the risks connected with the technology.

Simply including an ad hominem attack in a reader comment was enough to make study participants think the downside of the reported technology was greater than they'd previously thought.

There is a reason why seemingly all subreddits tend to turn negative about their respective game, it's because there are a number of phenomenon at play here that fundamentally change the way people discuss media and games online. These places turn into echo chambers of negativity because that is what people interact with the most. The truth is, the reality of how WoW plays day-to-day has much less to do with the direction the wind is blowing on reddit/twitch/forums/etc.


Edit: I also wanted to add that I don't think WoW shouldn't be criticized, and I do think the game is in a worse state now than at almost any point in the past, barring some of BfA. That being said, I do think that the reasons WHY the game is bad get lost in the circle-jerk vortexes and more constructive criticisms get lost. Much of the criticisms aren't rational because they aren't coming from people who are acting in god faith, even if the bas faith is coming from these biases out of their immediate control.

[m4Zzo928]

Negativity bias is incredibly strong and a tool used in pretty much every social media space by small influencers and massive e-celebs, this bias is well-researched and has been used by advertisers and marketers for basically ever.

There are a number of studies that suggest that people's opinion on a piece of media is heavily impacted by not just the influence of a content creator, but by comments and their tone.

A study was done that had groups of people read an article about biotechnology and then had the read the comments and discussion around it before responding to a short questionnaire. There were two groups, one group that read positive and civil comments about the subject matter, and a group that read uncivil negative comments. Here is a snip of the results:




There is a reason why seemingly all subreddits tend to turn negative about their respective game, it's because there are a number of phenomenon at play here that fundamentally change the way people discuss media and games online. These places turn into echo chambers of negativity because that is what people interact with the most. The truth is, the reality of how WoW plays day-to-day has much less to do with the direction the wind is blowing on reddit/twitch/forums/etc.


Edit: I also wanted to add that I don't think WoW shouldn't be criticized, and I do think the game is in a worse state now than at almost any point in the past, barring some of BfA. That being said, I do think that the reasons WHY the game is bad get lost in the circle-jerk vortexes and more constructive criticisms get lost. Much of the criticisms aren't rational because they aren't coming from people who are acting in god faith, even if the bas faith is coming from these biases out of their immediate control.

Yep, thanks for this post.

The thing that I’m seeing is that since there’s no regulations, rules, or ethics against this kind of behavior in media, and the herds inability to discern what’s really going on, they are especially ripe to be victims for the foreseeable future, and to an extent are at the mercy of these creators. That’s why I put such an emphasis on these role models, because they’re garbage these days, and being chosen by algorithms because their content checks off to reproduce negative interest rather than something of value.

Also, sure Blizzard isn’t innocent here too. They’ve made bad choices as well, and they most likely are very aware of the devolving nature of their playerbase. I think they’ve tried to accommodate, but in the end might have tried too hard to cater to the loudest of complainers, and that’s why I’ll say once more. Surveys. They can even be public with their surveys if they want that kind of transparency, but surveys would definitely be a tool against false overblown narratives, and what the playerbase really feels.

[Miffinat0r]

[Press X to doubt] meme.
I suggested afk replacements all the time, but i wait 2 minutes before doing so. never been silenced.


First of all, if you don't want to be kind, play different game.

And second of all, there is a difference between "suggesting replacement":
omg this guy is trash, kick him
vs
this guys is not performing well, should we get someone new?


Also blizzard changes are too little too late, if company doesnt give a shit about customers, why should you be positive about it?
I mean, play different games*, not necessarily xiv, you will understand difference.

* - excluding stuff like LoL.

I work in the corporate world. I easily always always prefer the toxic positivity guy, and the passive-aggressive guy, than blow up in your face guy.

[Relapses]

Also, sure Blizzard isn’t innocent here too. They’ve made bad choices as well, and they most likely are very aware of the devolving nature of their playerbase. I think they’ve tried to accommodate, but in the end might have tried too hard to cater to the loudest of complainers, and that’s why I’ll say once more. Surveys. They can even be public with their surveys if they want that kind of transparency, but surveys would definitely be a tool against false overblown narratives, and what the playerbase really feels.

Surveys are a good pulse check but I think a lot of people think survey and then immediately jump to the conclusion that their response to the survey is part of a democratic process where if they can convince enough people to agree with their perspective that whatever option they prefer will be put into action. I think that's why Blizzard doesn't use them much because of the community's tendency to hang on everything they say as unspoken promises of things they never said. I mentioned this in the first page of this thread but a good recent example is the Morgan Day interview about the new systems in 9.2. Players took his pre-9.2 interview to mean that they wouldn't have to do anything in 9.2 to get double Legendaries. When it eventually got datamined that double Legendaries were behind a reputation, players immediately jumped into attack mode and blamed Day for "duping" people into believing something that didn't happen. I saw people posting death threats to Blizzard devs on Twitter because of this misunderstanding. This isn't the first and almost definitely won't be the last time this has happened but I can understand why the devs would be cautious to speak to a community that almost universally resorts to the most extreme reaction possible whenever anything isn't exactly the way they thought it should be.