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On October 22 2012 01:44 DoA wrote: The first method...makes the community look immature.
I really like this post, and I think the above message cannot be stressed enough. An immature fan base gives the impression of a young fan base. Young fans are great too, but advertisers want older demographics with disposable income, and advertising money is the lifeblood of any major sport.
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On October 22 2012 12:56 Doc Daneeka wrote: not really, that's like management skills 101, you don't go around threatening your employees with punitive retribution all the time, you will not get results that way, you'll just have a bunch of people who are too worried about losing their paycheck to take any initiative or do anything without being told first. so basically a stupid scared useless work force. not that the analogy holds up in this situation anyway.
Once agian, blizzard is not a person, its a company. If they get enough criticism they have people who be going "Hey guys, the community really doesnt like this, we need to find a way to fix it.. some guys suggested this, perhaps we should look into that." , or well.. thats what any good company would do, i dont know how blizzard deal with their issues.
But if their management threatens their development teams by any means if they get negative feedback from the community, then there are alot bigger issues than hots balance.
What im trying to point out is that we should be telling blizzard what is wrong so they can change it. Ofcourse we shouldnt go spam reddit or twitter with "Omg hots so fucking bad dont buy that shit game", we should get that message across in other words... how about "I probably wont buy HotS because it feels like SC2 is too easy on micro, a protoss pretty much only have to buy some fighter units and rely on forcefields without even moving their other units during fights... so boring"
anyho, if anything i hope that blizzard listens to this guy My take: "#SaveHOTS", he makes alot of valid points.
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I think it's unfortunate, but it has always been the case that the community throwing a fit and 'mindlessly' and 'negatively' complaining about Blizzard is the best way to get results.
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I think it's always fun to imagine that Dustin Browser, David Kim or any other designer in the SC2 team reads the TL/reddit/Blizzard forums and goes "Oh noez that was a meany! I'll ignore his input!".
Even if Blizzard is having an employee searching through forums and gathering feedback for a higher up designer, do you really believe on the designer's desk there will be document saying: "You should do X, or I will not buy your game." "You should do X, I really love the game!" and not just a document saying: "X - how often was it mentioned: a lot"
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On October 22 2012 13:46 Grumbels wrote: I think it's unfortunate, but it has always been the case that the community throwing a fit and 'mindlessly' and 'negatively' complaining about Blizzard is the best way to get results.
Unfortunately I have to agree.
More than becoming a big developer Blizzard in recent years (something imo that clearly could be seen with D3 development) has had the attitude "you will play the game like we tell you to and you will enjoy it beacuse we tell you to".
I'm not saying that they should do changes on the fly based on forum trends. But in both SC2 and D3, whether you call it vocal minority or majority, the community have screamed for features and pointed at other developers features/success (Riot games support of LoL and Dota2 UI to name a few) and hardly any reaction from Blizzard.
Not until their playerbase is getting smaller they show any reaction to "constructive" criticism.
Unfortunately, in terms of Blizzard, screaming and being vocal seems the only way to go so although Doa brings good points I like the community being vocal and dramatic.
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Great post, Doa.
The problem with all this negativity is not how it affects what Blizzard thinks. The problem is that it spreads to other players. The only thing that might come as a result is less people playing.
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I just think the whole reaction to HOTS from the pro-community is amusing. Pro's often harp on the community for stirring up e-sports drama, but to be frank professional gamers are pretty emo and and have a ridiculous sense of self-entitlement for guys that make a living playing videogames.
It's nice to read a post basically reminding everyone to chill the fuck out.
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Finally someone speaking out what i had only been thinking these last few weeks. If you really want this game to stay fun and gro bigger, der right ways are enjoying it as much as you can and voicing your concerns is a constructive way. I have been working together with blizzard folks on game balance for wow back when i was a player, and they always took in a lot of criticism and tried to improve on it. I think you should give them the chance, after all these are the same people that keep makeing the best computer games ever.
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In one sentence: more GG, less BM!
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Nice post, but I'm not so sure I'm into the fable.
I'm not surprised that the Sun initiated the challenge. I mean, unless the Wind generated a gale force wind in a nanosecond capable of stripping the cloak from the traveler, of course he is going to grip tighter to his cloak when the wind starts blowing. After that the Wind has kinda run out of abilities. The Sun hand has a much easier time to simply turn the heat up a little since the traveler I'm assuming has a long way to walk so unless it was exceptionally cold (although the facts are unclear on this) he is probably going to take the cloak off anyway.
If I was the Wind I would appeal for a rematch. Maybe get Water and/or Earth to mediate the challenge in case Sun tries to pull something unfair again.
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I'm thankful that at least a few people are starting to realize that the septic tank we've been drowning ourselves in for the past few weeks is ultimately starting to be more hurtful than whatever "shittiness" is coming out of the Beta - I think at this point in the original WoL beta you still had abominations like 1-supply roaches and unstoppable warpgate rushes, no?
But that's going down the wrong path. It has really surprised me as of late how many people who are on this site because they presumably love Starcraft have been incredibly eager to join the shitstorming and bandwagon on all these "SC2 is dying" or "SC2 is in serious trouble" threads that have been springing up like stubborn weeds. Even in the threads that are trying to be positive, the doomsayers are rushing in to tell everyone who's trying to be positive why they're so wrong and why Blizzard hates all of us personally while Dustin Browder bathes in $100 bills made from WoW profits and plots on how to ruin the game. If one doesn't like watching SC2 or has grown bored or wishes to watch a MOBA, then no one's stopping you (and ideally shouldn't be judging you), but I don't understand why then these people float around on these forums and seem to only make posts bemoaning the awful state of whatever.
I sometimes wonder if we've set ourselves up for an episode like this one because of the very visible and yet-unhealed rift between the Brood War fans and the SC2 fans. Even before this, there's always been a somewhat snarky undercurrent on the site since the release of SC2, but it's grown exceptionally bad in the past month or so. I agree with DoA's title; if we keep on flinging shit at each other, what the hell are passers-by going to think when they see a bunch of people screaming at each other while covered in (figurative) filth? That's the worst poison of all, and it's one only we can inflict on ourselves.
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Well done DoA
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I read DotA Why must those two names use the same capitalization :D
Still a very good post, people are too doomsday/whiny about SC2.
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On October 22 2012 08:38 MCDayC wrote: I can't be the only one who did a double take and read it as "dota says". Also, totally agree, its not that we shouldn't discuss flaws, but we can't as a community drown in negativity. That will kill SC2, more than anything else.
Yeah I think this is very true. No just try to be less negative about your critics cause their is no need, you can say exactly the same thing but in a constructive manner. I think this should be considered a challenge cause it is a lot harder to write a positive constructive post compared to a flaming one.
Then some people say that "People need to get hard, this is the internet". Well what I think might happen when you get 1000.000 negative posts saying hundreds of different things in often conflicting subjects in a very angry way is that you go "Fuck it, to read this gives me nothing". It is like we become an entity of negative random shit. You cannot look at your post alone, it is one out of many.
Personally I like the idea for blizzard to reach out to a few persons in the community and give some sort of temporary employment/"idea boot camp" and let them represent the scene. People like, Grubby, MrBitter, Violet, Thorzain or Tyler. This I think is the best option, these people know SC2/RTS way above the average players and can give constructive feedback to Blizzard. As much as I would like the community to change I am not so sure it will happen.
Finally a controversial thing to say. The community should sometimes try to be a little more thankful towards blizzard, everything on the website and in this community is a consequence of their work. It does not feel like this community reflects on this very often.
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Even though it is well-written, I think if people feel this has to be mentioned at all the community need to grow up.
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Yep, positive attitude and constructive criticism is always better than the screaming 'the end is nigh.' Good thread.
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People do need to chill a bit, the expansions will keep the playerbase big enough to maintain its current level at the minimum. In the end SC2s place in esports will be decided by the final expansion, because thats the game we will have for the longest time, in the same way brood war defined SC1. As long as thats done right, SC2 could easily last as long as 1, as long as blizzard doesnt go full EA (BF4 beta announced already? Really?) and try and release SC3 the year after LotV is finished.
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Very good post! All the negative talk lately is a sure way to needlessly hurt SC2. Sure, address problems and concerns, try to get them fixed - but not with the negativity and sensationalism some recent posts had.
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DoA, thank you.
Blizzard itself may not be on the community's "side", but the game designers SURELY have a passion for creating great games, or else they would never be where they are today. They are our most important allies in creating a game we enjoy and they can be proud of.
Anger, while potent against apathy or disdain, is damaging when used against allies. We want Blizzards programmers to feel appreciated and we need to show them that we appreciate their effort. With this being done, we can present our criticisms as a process of working together towards a more beautiful game.
Finally, if Blizzard didn't care about the work they created, they wouldn't take to $%^&*ing long to put things out!
[Off Topic] this is the same anger that is destroying our national politics, a desire to blame and deride instead of finding points of commonality and discussion. I hope Jon Stewart and Colbert hold a Rally to Restore Sanity in SC2 :D![/Off Topic]
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I find myself in semi-agreement with DoA, but I disagree on some points.
Polite, upbeat correspondence with a developer works if the developer is listening and communicating and the relationship with the community is in good shape. If it isn't, getting in a tizz is actually the only leverage that community has.
One guy going on a rant doesn't count. That happens all the time; it's like background radiation. What developers do care about, what they watch for and what we should watch for, is when fission starts to cascade and a rant gathers significant momentum. That's a red flag that they, the developers, are neglecting something or doing something really unpopular or communicating what they're doing badly.
What happened immediately after #saveHotS? Like, in the time it would take someone to put together a nicely-formatted BNET press release? An update about the BNET feature set for HotS, and some motion towards getting pro feedback injected more directly into the development process. The former was clearly already in the pipeline, just poorly communicated. The latter may or may not have been on Blizzard's radar - regardless, we are now in a better and more informed position as a result of that groundswell of discontent being given a voice, and there are threads full of 'my faith is restored' posts.
What I'm trying to say is that ranting is not bad for esports in general or SC2 in particular. When there's nothing actually worth getting worked up about, it's just a reassuring background noise that lets you know people are out there caring. When it goes critical (I loves me them puns) like #saveHotS did, it exposes and helps to close gaps in communication or expectation or understanding. Whilst we might as individuals prefer to express our feelings more politely or positively, or even disagree with the importance others attach to features or problems, I don't think we should be trying to shut each other up with accusations that anyone is 'hurting the community'.
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