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On June 07 2013 00:06 Gowerly wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2013 23:55 HeeroFX wrote:
I think we knew the sc devs were dicks when they refused to give listen to the community wants and suggestions. To be fair have you seen some of the suggestions the community has? Some places (a couple where I have worked) don't even allow the devs on their forums because a) it's soul destroying and b) because the suggestions are largely bad at best and insane at worst It's ok to listen to a subset of the community, generally the top level players, as they understand things the most. Outside of that, though, you're all crazy.
There is a rule in business staitng the customer is always right.Saying that people who buy your products are wrong and you are better than them is a bit of dangerous for the company.Also listening to the community seems to be working flawlessly for other games develpes such as riot,valve or the dudes behind world of tanks.Why can't blizzard do the same?We're not half as toxic as other communities,most of us have been long time fans aka buyers of blizzard games and when a topic gets like a 100 pages on the forum its most likely a serious issue.
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Modifications by users as a spin-off or a seperate game?
Ha! Troll.
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On June 07 2013 00:08 Ysellian wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2013 23:55 HeeroFX wrote:
I think we knew the sc devs were dicks when they refused to give listen to the community wants and suggestions. Any expert in any field will always look down on community feedback and suggestions by people not involved in their industry. Not saying that it's a good thing to do, but it happens in all industries because many things the community want or suggest are just borderline retarded. I'll give an example from my own field of work. At my last job people kept on ranting about wanting less traffic congestion, more parking spaces AND more room for children to play. Those things do NOT go along.
Get this stuff out of your head.Game devs in other successfull game such as lol and world of tanks are constantly communicating with the people on the general discussion forum,receiving input and community suggestion.Yes they do receive a lot of trashtalk but its part of the job.
The idea of close interraction with community is vital to any gaming company especially in the field of esports.We are not living in 1998 anymore when blizzard had a monopoly.Also we are resonable individuals with many specific concerns.If they wanted to they can communicate with us in a humane language.
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lol with all the due respect to the QA job, a "QA" guy isn't exactly always the most reliable source
every company has hundreds of QA guys and they are not involved at all in the developing process, they simply test stuff out. so many of these answers should be taken with a grain of salt
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Agree with others here. Sounds like just a guy who is no longer employed there and bitter about it.
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On June 07 2013 00:11 theking1 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2013 00:06 Gowerly wrote:On June 06 2013 23:55 HeeroFX wrote:
I think we knew the sc devs were dicks when they refused to give listen to the community wants and suggestions. To be fair have you seen some of the suggestions the community has? Some places (a couple where I have worked) don't even allow the devs on their forums because a) it's soul destroying and b) because the suggestions are largely bad at best and insane at worst It's ok to listen to a subset of the community, generally the top level players, as they understand things the most. Outside of that, though, you're all crazy. There is a rule in business staitng the customer is always right.Saying that people who buy your products are wrong and you are better than them is a bit of dangerous for the company.Also listening to the community seems to be working flawlessly for other games develpes such as riot,valve or the dudes behind world of tanks.Why can't blizzard do the same?We're not half as toxic as other communities,most of us have been long time fans aka buyers of blizzard games and when a topic gets like a 100 pages on the forum its most likely a serious issue.
"Riot" don't. "Valve" don't. Their devs are most likely, in general, far removed from the community forums.
There will be a community management team that can and will post on the forums and pass on anything that comes in.
I would be surprised if, largely, any suggestion that comes from the forum is used. I'm largely talking about balance here. User interface changes, etc, there's usually more leeway with, but even then it's only really implemented if there's huge call for it.
It's not about saying you're better than your customers, it's more saying that you can't listen to everything your customers say, not least because generally a group will not be able to agree on a solution. Hence balance changes being really considered by the games played rather than what's being said.
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On June 07 2013 00:19 Gowerly wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2013 00:11 theking1 wrote:On June 07 2013 00:06 Gowerly wrote:On June 06 2013 23:55 HeeroFX wrote:
I think we knew the sc devs were dicks when they refused to give listen to the community wants and suggestions. To be fair have you seen some of the suggestions the community has? Some places (a couple where I have worked) don't even allow the devs on their forums because a) it's soul destroying and b) because the suggestions are largely bad at best and insane at worst It's ok to listen to a subset of the community, generally the top level players, as they understand things the most. Outside of that, though, you're all crazy. There is a rule in business staitng the customer is always right.Saying that people who buy your products are wrong and you are better than them is a bit of dangerous for the company.Also listening to the community seems to be working flawlessly for other games develpes such as riot,valve or the dudes behind world of tanks.Why can't blizzard do the same?We're not half as toxic as other communities,most of us have been long time fans aka buyers of blizzard games and when a topic gets like a 100 pages on the forum its most likely a serious issue. "Riot" don't. "Valve" don't. Their devs are most likely, in general, far removed from the community forums. There will be a community management team that can and will post on the forums and pass on anything that comes in. I would be surprised if, largely, any suggestion that comes from the forum is used. I'm largely talking about balance here. User interface changes, etc, there's usually more leeway with, but even then it's only really implemented if there's huge call for it. It's not about saying you're better than your customers, it's more saying that you can't listen to everything your customers say, not least because generally a group will not be able to agree on a solution. Hence balance changes being really considered by the games played rather than what's being said.
Riot does post a lot of their forums, but they generally ignore a lot of the communities dumbest requests. The freak out about them adjusting the prices for their skins was one of the dumbest threads I have ever read in my life. Riot came out and pointed out that a single reasonably complex skin costs around 20K to make and the community responded by calling Riot liars.
Valve doesn't talk to anyone, ever. I never see anything from them at all beyond press releases. They respond to so little, but gain unlimited love because of steam and cheap games. It easy to develop games when you make money off of selling other peoples games and use the profits to fund your own.
The community should be taken with a grain of salt, just like the AMA.
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Working 12-14 hours per day, who knew? I knew, no surprise Blizzard treat theirs employes as slaves.
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On June 07 2013 00:11 theking1 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2013 00:06 Gowerly wrote:On June 06 2013 23:55 HeeroFX wrote:
I think we knew the sc devs were dicks when they refused to give listen to the community wants and suggestions. To be fair have you seen some of the suggestions the community has? Some places (a couple where I have worked) don't even allow the devs on their forums because a) it's soul destroying and b) because the suggestions are largely bad at best and insane at worst It's ok to listen to a subset of the community, generally the top level players, as they understand things the most. Outside of that, though, you're all crazy. There is a rule in business staitng the customer is always right.Saying that people who buy your products are wrong and you are better than them is a bit of dangerous for the company.Also listening to the community seems to be working flawlessly for other games develpes such as riot,valve or the dudes behind world of tanks.Why can't blizzard do the same?We're not half as toxic as other communities,most of us have been long time fans aka buyers of blizzard games and when a topic gets like a 100 pages on the forum its most likely a serious issue.
That rule is based on how you treat the customers. You treat them AS IF they are right. If "the customer is always right" means "you give every single customer exactly what they want" then every restaurant in the world would have 50 page long menus and be unfeasible to run.
Source: Restaurant manager. That saying is fucking ridiculous. You treat them courteously and nicely as if they are right, and you apologize humbly and try to make it up to them if something goes wrong. You treat complaints as 10 times important as compliments. That's the meaning behind that phrase, so tired of people getting this wrong.
Or let's apply the customer is always right mindset to games. A new patch every week taht dramatically changes multiple heroes, at many times the labor cost to the development team. Do you think the game would be as popular if they did that every time some SonGoku447UltraZ complained that his favorite hero wasn't OP enough? Gimme a break.
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On June 07 2013 00:14 theking1 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2013 00:08 Ysellian wrote:On June 06 2013 23:55 HeeroFX wrote:
I think we knew the sc devs were dicks when they refused to give listen to the community wants and suggestions. Any expert in any field will always look down on community feedback and suggestions by people not involved in their industry. Not saying that it's a good thing to do, but it happens in all industries because many things the community want or suggest are just borderline retarded. I'll give an example from my own field of work. At my last job people kept on ranting about wanting less traffic congestion, more parking spaces AND more room for children to play. Those things do NOT go along. Get this stuff out of your head.Game devs in other successfull game such as lol and world of tanks are constantly communicating with the people on the general discussion forum,receiving input and community suggestion.Yes they do receive a lot of trashtalk but its part of the job. The idea of close interraction with community is vital to any gaming company especially in the field of esports.We are not living in 1998 anymore when blizzard had a monopoly.Also we are resonable individuals with many specific concerns.If they wanted to they can communicate with us in a humane language.
Valve don't communicate (Seriously Half Life 2: Episode 3 ever happening Gabe?) and it's worked out for them just fine. Close interaction with the community is hardly necessary, you talk to figure heads or have people gather information to give you a general consensus of what the community wants, but someone who has been in the industry as long as Dustin for example will still know his shit better than most people.
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On June 07 2013 00:29 Trumpstyle wrote:
Working 12-14 hours per day, who knew? I knew, no surprise Blizzard treat there employes as slaves.
That is standard in the video game industry, its called crunch. They are there because they care about the game and want to make it better. If you disapprove of people working 14 hour days, stop buying video games. All of them.
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Where's that twitch.tv "salt" emoticon when you need it.
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On June 07 2013 00:29 Aberu wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2013 00:11 theking1 wrote:On June 07 2013 00:06 Gowerly wrote:On June 06 2013 23:55 HeeroFX wrote:
I think we knew the sc devs were dicks when they refused to give listen to the community wants and suggestions. To be fair have you seen some of the suggestions the community has? Some places (a couple where I have worked) don't even allow the devs on their forums because a) it's soul destroying and b) because the suggestions are largely bad at best and insane at worst It's ok to listen to a subset of the community, generally the top level players, as they understand things the most. Outside of that, though, you're all crazy. There is a rule in business staitng the customer is always right.Saying that people who buy your products are wrong and you are better than them is a bit of dangerous for the company.Also listening to the community seems to be working flawlessly for other games develpes such as riot,valve or the dudes behind world of tanks.Why can't blizzard do the same?We're not half as toxic as other communities,most of us have been long time fans aka buyers of blizzard games and when a topic gets like a 100 pages on the forum its most likely a serious issue. That rule is based on how you treat the customers. You treat them AS IF they are right. If "the customer is always right" means "you give every single customer exactly what they want" then every restaurant in the world would have 50 page long menus and be unfeasible to run. Source: Restaurant manager. That saying is fucking ridiculous. You treat them courteously and nicely as if they are right, and you apologize humbly and try to make it up to them if something goes wrong. You treat complaints as 10 times important as compliments. That's the meaning behind that phrase, so tired of people getting this wrong. Or let's apply the customer is always right mindset to games. A new patch every week taht dramatically changes multiple heroes, at many times the labor cost to the development team. Do you think the game would be as popular if they did that every time some SonGoku447UltraZ complained that his favorite hero wasn't OP enough? Gimme a break.
i was reffering mostly to serious issues like the ones that cause 100 pages long threads.The issues do not include nerfing heroes but more serious topics such the free to play online features which they have implemented,lack of lan,more customization options such as skins etc etc.Nerfing a hero or race does not raise a 200k pettion like the lack of lan has
Also your example with the restaurant is a bit flawed in this context.if a restauran towner receives 100 complains regarding a certaina spect he will most likely change it as he will lose clients.Also I seriously never heard of anyone complaining about restaurants not having 50 page long menus lol.The basic idea is that having such a hardcore fanbase we are most likely different from Songoku44utraz and know what we want(theoretically) and maybe we actually want the good of the game and do not complain for te sake of complaining 
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Not to sound like a huge fanboy but this dude does sound quite bitter, even condescending towards the Blizzard devs. Considering that and his low position I'd take everything he says with a grain of salt.
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Having worked in the industry, when you're in crunch time at the end you basically work 2-4 weeks and put in 12 hour days, 7 days a week. This is par for the course and has been the way game dev has worked for decades. Nothing new.
Second, QA people are a dime a dozen, and have never gotten along with devs and vice versa. Devs do the heavy lifting, QA tells them where they fucked up. The problem stems from Devs hating being told they did something wrong and QA thinking they have more control over development than they actually do. Again, par for the course, nothing new.
He's basically describing what happens at every game company ever, but complaining about it as if it's something bad. It's just what it is. You either deal with that or get a different job. It's not like QA staff is difficult to find.
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On June 07 2013 00:41 vesicular wrote:
Having worked in the industry, when you're in crunch time at the end you basically work 2-4 weeks and put in 12 hour days, 7 days a week. This is par for the course and has been the way game dev has worked for decades. Nothing new.
Second, QA people are a dime a dozen, and have never gotten along with devs and vice versa. Devs do the heavy lifting, QA tells them where they fucked up. The problem stems from Devs hating being told they did something wrong and QA thinking they have more control over development than they actually do. Again, par for the course, nothing new.
He's basically describing what happens at every game company ever, but complaining about it as if it's something bad. It's just what it is. You either deal with that or get a different job. It's not like QA staff is difficult to find.
This, also I'd take every comment about a former employer from someone who got fired with a grain of salt in general.
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On June 07 2013 00:27 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2013 00:19 Gowerly wrote:On June 07 2013 00:11 theking1 wrote:On June 07 2013 00:06 Gowerly wrote:On June 06 2013 23:55 HeeroFX wrote:
I think we knew the sc devs were dicks when they refused to give listen to the community wants and suggestions. To be fair have you seen some of the suggestions the community has? Some places (a couple where I have worked) don't even allow the devs on their forums because a) it's soul destroying and b) because the suggestions are largely bad at best and insane at worst It's ok to listen to a subset of the community, generally the top level players, as they understand things the most. Outside of that, though, you're all crazy. There is a rule in business staitng the customer is always right.Saying that people who buy your products are wrong and you are better than them is a bit of dangerous for the company.Also listening to the community seems to be working flawlessly for other games develpes such as riot,valve or the dudes behind world of tanks.Why can't blizzard do the same?We're not half as toxic as other communities,most of us have been long time fans aka buyers of blizzard games and when a topic gets like a 100 pages on the forum its most likely a serious issue. "Riot" don't. "Valve" don't. Their devs are most likely, in general, far removed from the community forums. There will be a community management team that can and will post on the forums and pass on anything that comes in. I would be surprised if, largely, any suggestion that comes from the forum is used. I'm largely talking about balance here. User interface changes, etc, there's usually more leeway with, but even then it's only really implemented if there's huge call for it. It's not about saying you're better than your customers, it's more saying that you can't listen to everything your customers say, not least because generally a group will not be able to agree on a solution. Hence balance changes being really considered by the games played rather than what's being said. Riot does post a lot of their forums, but they generally ignore a lot of the communities dumbest requests. The freak out about them adjusting the prices for their skins was one of the dumbest threads I have ever read in my life. Riot came out and pointed out that a single reasonably complex skin costs around 20K to make and the community responded by calling Riot liars. Valve doesn't talk to anyone, ever. I never see anything from them at all beyond press releases. They respond to so little, but gain unlimited love because of steam and cheap games. It easy to develop games when you make money off of selling other peoples games and use the profits to fund your own. The community should be taken with a grain of salt, just like the AMA.
I have seen this threa don the riot euw forum
http://euw.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=1225244
Basicly there is a huge shitstorm going on on the euw forums regarding the server statuses being bad and other regions such as na and kr getting priviledged redpost and mor eperks.I saw some very high end people there like technical directors and stuff like that
Also posts such as these
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=38402547#38402547
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=36216732#36216732
where a couple of actual game devs(it says in red theyare game devs) at least give some explanations to the community are a bit better than nothing.Not to bash blizzard or anything but it would be cool if some game devs would come to us about the game design in general and about their ideas
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On June 07 2013 00:40 theking1 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2013 00:29 Aberu wrote:On June 07 2013 00:11 theking1 wrote:On June 07 2013 00:06 Gowerly wrote:On June 06 2013 23:55 HeeroFX wrote:
I think we knew the sc devs were dicks when they refused to give listen to the community wants and suggestions. To be fair have you seen some of the suggestions the community has? Some places (a couple where I have worked) don't even allow the devs on their forums because a) it's soul destroying and b) because the suggestions are largely bad at best and insane at worst It's ok to listen to a subset of the community, generally the top level players, as they understand things the most. Outside of that, though, you're all crazy. There is a rule in business staitng the customer is always right.Saying that people who buy your products are wrong and you are better than them is a bit of dangerous for the company.Also listening to the community seems to be working flawlessly for other games develpes such as riot,valve or the dudes behind world of tanks.Why can't blizzard do the same?We're not half as toxic as other communities,most of us have been long time fans aka buyers of blizzard games and when a topic gets like a 100 pages on the forum its most likely a serious issue. That rule is based on how you treat the customers. You treat them AS IF they are right. If "the customer is always right" means "you give every single customer exactly what they want" then every restaurant in the world would have 50 page long menus and be unfeasible to run. Source: Restaurant manager. That saying is fucking ridiculous. You treat them courteously and nicely as if they are right, and you apologize humbly and try to make it up to them if something goes wrong. You treat complaints as 10 times important as compliments. That's the meaning behind that phrase, so tired of people getting this wrong. Or let's apply the customer is always right mindset to games. A new patch every week taht dramatically changes multiple heroes, at many times the labor cost to the development team. Do you think the game would be as popular if they did that every time some SonGoku447UltraZ complained that his favorite hero wasn't OP enough? Gimme a break. i was reffering mostly to serious issues like the ones that cause 100 pages long threads.The issues do not include nerfing heroes but more serious topics such the free to play online features which they have implemented,lack of lan,more customization options such as skins etc etc.Nerfing a hero or race does not raise a 200k pettion like the lack of lan has Also your example with the restaurant is a bit flawed in this context.if a restauran towner receives 100 complains regarding a certaina spect he will most likely change it as he will lose clients.Also I seriously never heard of anyone complaining about restaurants not having 50 page long menus lol.The basic idea is that having such a hardcore fanbase we are most likely different from Songoku44utraz and know what we want(theoretically) and maybe we actually want the good of the game and do not complain for te sake of complaining
Free to play is not an option for Blizzard for SC2. It would cost them millions of dollars to create a business model to justify the development cost, create a pricing structure for the content and then sell that content world wide. It has taken Riot years to create that. Also, why would Blizzard chase after Riots success? That is what tons of companies did for WoW and failed. There is no reason for Blizzard to change their plans just because someone else is making money on another game. The demands for F2P are being made by people who don’t understand how the industry works or just assume that F2P is easy.
And a lot of people being outraged or upset about something on the internet it not good feedback or a reason to change things. A 100 page thread means that enough people posted world wide to make the thread 100 pages. At 20 posts a page or so, that is around 20,000 posts. At maximum that is 20K people (which is unlikely) world wide that decided to post about that thing. That is like getting 20K likes on facebook, which isn’t super meaningful. Just because a lot of people are willing to post about something doesn’t mean its important. It just means they were willing to take 1-5 minutes to post something.
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On June 07 2013 00:48 theking1 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2013 00:27 Plansix wrote:On June 07 2013 00:19 Gowerly wrote:On June 07 2013 00:11 theking1 wrote:On June 07 2013 00:06 Gowerly wrote:On June 06 2013 23:55 HeeroFX wrote:
I think we knew the sc devs were dicks when they refused to give listen to the community wants and suggestions. To be fair have you seen some of the suggestions the community has? Some places (a couple where I have worked) don't even allow the devs on their forums because a) it's soul destroying and b) because the suggestions are largely bad at best and insane at worst It's ok to listen to a subset of the community, generally the top level players, as they understand things the most. Outside of that, though, you're all crazy. There is a rule in business staitng the customer is always right.Saying that people who buy your products are wrong and you are better than them is a bit of dangerous for the company.Also listening to the community seems to be working flawlessly for other games develpes such as riot,valve or the dudes behind world of tanks.Why can't blizzard do the same?We're not half as toxic as other communities,most of us have been long time fans aka buyers of blizzard games and when a topic gets like a 100 pages on the forum its most likely a serious issue. "Riot" don't. "Valve" don't. Their devs are most likely, in general, far removed from the community forums. There will be a community management team that can and will post on the forums and pass on anything that comes in. I would be surprised if, largely, any suggestion that comes from the forum is used. I'm largely talking about balance here. User interface changes, etc, there's usually more leeway with, but even then it's only really implemented if there's huge call for it. It's not about saying you're better than your customers, it's more saying that you can't listen to everything your customers say, not least because generally a group will not be able to agree on a solution. Hence balance changes being really considered by the games played rather than what's being said. Riot does post a lot of their forums, but they generally ignore a lot of the communities dumbest requests. The freak out about them adjusting the prices for their skins was one of the dumbest threads I have ever read in my life. Riot came out and pointed out that a single reasonably complex skin costs around 20K to make and the community responded by calling Riot liars. Valve doesn't talk to anyone, ever. I never see anything from them at all beyond press releases. They respond to so little, but gain unlimited love because of steam and cheap games. It easy to develop games when you make money off of selling other peoples games and use the profits to fund your own. The community should be taken with a grain of salt, just like the AMA. I have seen this threa don the riot euw forum http://euw.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=1225244Basicly there is a huge shitstorm going on on the euw forums regarding the server statuses being bad and other regions such as na and kr getting priviledged redpost and mor eperks.I saw some very high end people there like technical directors and stuff like that Also posts such as these http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=38402547#38402547http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=36216732#36216732where a couple of actual game devs(it says in red theyare game devs) at least give some explanations to the community are a bit better than nothing.Not to bash blizzard or anything but it would be cool if some game devs would come to us about the game design in general and about their ideas
To quote Tseric:
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Posting impassionately, they say you don't care.
Posting nothing, they say you ignore.
Posting with passion, you incite trolls.
Posting fluff, you say nonsense.
Post with what facts you have, they whittle down with rationale.
There is no win.
...
The devs need to stay away from the community discussion in order to keep their sanity.
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I find it hilarious how people claim that QA "simply tests the product". Ever heard of product conforming to the requirements? Be it functional or non functional? How can one test if the product conforms to the specification if he has no idea about it? Run it with end-user, perhaps he will accept it after 1 mln iterations? Waste hours of time and money to get it conformant?
On topic, I was actually curious how the work at Blizzard looks like, and thanks to that post I have at least slight idea.
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EPT
