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Posting on Forums Can be 'Scary' & 'Intimidating' for Developers According to Kaplan - Overwatch - M
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Posting on Forums Can be 'Scary' & 'Intimidating' for Developers According to Kaplan - Overwatch - MMORPG.com
Overwatch News - According to Jeff Kaplan, posting on the Overwatch community forum can be scary and intimidating for developers. He alludes to members of his team who have been "personally attacked and intimidated" by players fans. While the OW team appreciates the enthusiasm, it can be a frightening experience for devs when they are constantly concerned about 'saying the wrong thing'. Game forums are not a "safe environment" for open communication due to harassment and out of context interpretation.
Comments
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Eh....I'll try and be nice about this. Its not that they are afraid of the community. The statement sounds like they are more afraid of losing their jobs or getting docked pay for getting into a war of words with trolls on the forum. Its easy enough to ignore people and just say in a statement that you will respond to "valid" statements. Plus Blizzard isn't really a small company. Statements should be screened before being posted to make sure that no one is going rogue, so to speak. But in the case I'm wrong, they just need thicker skin. Plain and simple. Besides, this statement kind of sounds stupid the more you think about it mainly because the forums in Blizzard games have always been notorious for being toxic long before OW was even thought of (well mainly WoW and that's more in regard to the community in general, not just the forums), so again...eh...
Why is this? There a reason why people do what they do..Maybe they(Players) had a EA game and the Devs took the money and ran and left the game unfinished...Few bad apples and it ruins the rest..
Maybe the Devs pretended that they care but dont ,knowing they wont change anything in the game..
I can write a wall of text as to why..But then who cares in this toxic world of ours?
I retired retroactively..Haha
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Yeah what exactly got deleted? I have had a couple posts removed due to me blatantly flaming someone but I have yet to see any actual criticism get censored here at least.
Well, forum ToS is usually very dependent on the company. Most forum rules for companies will state they have the right to remove any criticism that can influence the views of others about their staff and the company itself (SE's forum rules state this for theirs). So that means, even if its a "good" post or thread, if its viewed as negative to them (i.e. making a thread about a bug that's persisted for a while) they can and most likely will remove it because it may show that they are slow to address problems etc.
"He alludes to members of his team who have been "personally attacked and intimidated" by players fans. "
So yes, developers do need to be careful about what they reveal (and I would say how to act. Why is that so hard? It really seems at times that the video game industry is populated by "kids") but there is a horrible segment of the player population that drags the hobby down.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Exactly this. Why create anything more than a low effort post if it's going to get nuked or edited by censorious mods?
Its been my experience posts which are so deleted are worthy of such actions
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Many of the threads that were deleted presented very good FREE ideas but my guess is they don't want their players getting any thoughts of how much better their games can be so they just delete delete delete.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Its no surprise the devs and GMs on WoW forums barely post on their own forums anymore. Anytime they posted anything, they got tons of hate from people who either were trolls or just didn't like their post because they didn't get what they wanted.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
In any company I've ever worked for, if I publicly told my clients / customers to "stop crying" then I would be typing my resume by the weekend.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Truth is it is far easier to write what sounds good,send it into mmorg.com and have 100% biased articles all the time.Then wonder why someone like me jumps all over them,they are fake agenda articles,no purpose than to persuade the easy sell targets to buy their games.
In other words Kaplan wants to exploit the lack of laws and create nothing more than a positive aura around Blizzard,NOT an accurate one just one Blizzard is allowed to paint of themselves.
It took me a very long time to figure Blizzard out and not until i stuck around hearthstone and Diablo for many years did i find out what a crooked operation they are.
Brad is the ONLY guy who took to the forums,he stick behind his product instead of hiding and sending in biased articles to websites to butter them up.I think i am not alone in respecting Brad for that.took a lot of heat but at least he showed up instead of counting his money in bank Vault.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
It's more often seeing devs fleeing from discussing with their community, hence why the PR filter stands mid-way that will be the community management.
It's a real bad sign to use the actions of a small portion of the population as an excuse. Look, if people act out of line or break the rules, that is what the moderators are for, don't use their actions as an excuse to not answer to criticisms.
From the article, "Once we say we're working on something, we're not allowed to 'take it back'. It's set in stone." What are we, as players, supposed to take from a statement like that? Never take a game developer at their word? Never hold them accountable to their own statements? Their words and statements mean nothing? Hey, when plans change, say plans have changed. Something that game developers once thought was possible to implement turns out to not be so. Just inform the players, don't go into a semantics battle by saying things like, "We never used the word 'promise.'"
Personally attacked or what not is expecting today on the internet especially from the gaming community. You need a thick skin for internet interaction, the question is, who is at fault? The gamers who provoke this? Or the devs for becoming reclusive because of these idiots?
I think they care about the nut jobs who "say things" and then take it upon themselves to stalk the developers, find their houses, that sort of thing.
I mean, would you want some gamer nut job to start sending you messages and "stuff" to your house? On the surface it might seem "funny" but what happens when some guy (it's just going to be a guy) decides to pay you a visit?
Some of these people have no boundaries.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo