The internet is a strange place where we can be not who we are, and speak mindlessly and unconsciously affect people.
I felt sympathy for the Dev to get negative messages (insults, or threats of violence) yet also felt sympathy for those whom wrote them.
My personal believe is that these negative messages are not meant to be accepted and encourage. Thus, then why do I feel sympathy for those whom wrote them?
As above, some of them ain’t themself when they have no good channel to voice and be heard. They could have started out as positive as anyone, but the culture can change a person.
We also see alot of support for the Dev, but it seems to me that some of them are people that have a communication avenue with the Dev as a streamer, co-worker, etc.
The difference between both group maybe Communication.
"this isn't even at outlier, it's the normal"
But I want to move beyond the topic of Communication. In this forum, what do we accept as the Standard on how we interact with each other?
The COC are the rules, but the Culture is how we interpret and believe on those set of rules. It is easier to be nice, when people are nice to you. But, when a person comes with agenda or malice, most people fights back.
I do see a reason to fight back, but in many cases, the method may not be appropriate. Too many times, we see threads focusing on each other rather than the topic. Replies becoming too personal.
Thus, have we already accept it as a normal?
Do we need to change or can we change?
Changing Culture could be 1 of the hardest thing to achieve. The foremost is to start with ourselves on the above.
Do we continue to support repeated rigged, nerf, rant thread discussion?
Do we continue to ignore true discussion, request of help, etc?
Do we continue to seek drama, salt and spice?
Why should we care, as this place and game is dumps?
Bonus Qns: As a Dev/Mod, is there anything you can do?
Devs will complain and cry about negative reception, but then completly ignore positive feedback and discussion such as this, inciting more negativity.
While I completely disagree with how the person in Iksar’s tweet lashed out, if they keep neglecting their community then it will just continue.
I mean, to face harsh reality, even though you’ve put together this post to address ikar’s issues, he most likely won’t even read it, let alone respond. And even if he does, it’s the first time in what, 2 months he’s said anything in a user made thread?
As rough as it sounds, if the devs refuse to acknowledge the community and participate, then they bring the negativity on themselves.
This level of toxicity and hate is completely unwarranted and I’m very disappointed so many immature people react this way to the devs. It’s one thing to say quest mage should to be nerfed and here’s why, but it’s another to be blatantly disrespectful like that. Really a shame.
It is interesting how a Dev select a post to reply in the 1st place. (via view count, Mods redirect post to Dev, or pure RNG)
Alternatively, does our (players) actions contribute to make messages/thread more visible?
The thing is we could just go direct to X’s twitter account, but it can borderline on other’s private space. Official forum is a recognized platform for discussion by most internationally, as such my choice of communication on HS matters.
But this platform does not serve a greater purpose. If there is a complain or feedback, what should be the proper channel? Is there clarity on COC implementation? etc, etc.
This is an issue the Dev need to pay more attention of IF they really wants to improve the community, in turn the reception they get.
Meanwhile, as individuals, the messages in the OP.
I had a pretty elongated thread about the toxicity of our community here on Hearthstone.
Blizzard doesn’t aim to make Hearthstones community any better so their expectations of the community having a positive outlook can be placed upon their shoulders. Did you notice that he didn’t post that HERE, for a warranted discussion on the topic?
No, we’re left here to our own devices on the games actual forums. The one with Blizzard in the web address. They don’t even need to keep their DMs open if they addressed the community properly.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Wardrum or Lykotic and even Mand make posts that go a long way in developing a communal standard. These people are your f’n moderators. You don’t have any. You have no one here to help newer players along, no one to answer questions or develop lines of communication on feedback. We’re all just rats in your card game experiment at this point.
The developers could create guilds, an option to emote friendlier. A reward system to help new players be kinder to one another.
Does any sense of community exist on this game? No.
Instead, this is what I get:
Well played.
Well played.
Well played.
Well played.
Well played.
Well played.
Oops. Oops. Oops.
Well played.
Just look at that tweet from Roger. What relevant information does it actually have? Basically that Iksar allegedly said that Time Warp together with Giants are “not powerful, not a swing turn” and that Roger doesn’t agree with that. That’s it. I can’t even imagine that this accusation is even ture. That’s clearly the whole “point” of the deck. But Roger didn’t address this in any way. Roger also didn’t suggested an alternative solution as in how it should have been instead.
I personally feel like this whole toxicity comes from one single thing: Competiton. Roger tried to win and failed. But what else could have happened? The opponent failed to win. Or the worst: A draw. There is always one person that will feel bad. How bad they feel depends on how much they want to win. If they only enjoy winning… that can become problematic. At the end of the day only one out of two can win.
This is why I only play for fun and only use the goal of winning as a guideline. It almost certainly would be impossible to get rid of all competiton. But I think by limiting it as much as possible we would create over time a much healthier culture.
And for this I really wish they would make something like guilds or lobbies where you can meet with like-minded people. I think that on its own can make a big difference. Especially in smaller groups I think people will be more understanding and hopefully people can help one another in situations like these so that the toxicity can be at least mitigated.
On a personal note: Currently I’m not playing. Why? I would like to play, but it’s just rather meh. Ranked? I don’t like competition as I said and also you can’t disable golden heroes once you unlocked them and I don’t like that “goldenness”. Casual? Every other game I face people that like concede on turn 0 or are AFK or they play with bad basic cards, etc., etc. Arena? See Ranked. I guess I could play Battlegrounds or Tavern Brawl and just now I played a bit of Solo Adventure. But just playing with those decks I just recently made? No. Well, I also tried the Reddit Discord to find someone but to no avail. It doesn’t help that the entire player base is split into three regions for that matter. I also wish they would do something about that, but well, very unlikely as this would greatly hurt profits I’d imagine.
I agree with that, HS is fundamentally a zero sum game, if I win - somebody else had to lose, on top of that it is rarely a fair fight - it’s more about matchups, tech choices, draw order, some coin flips & collection depth.
Still doesn’t make it right to launch profanity filled tirades at the folks who make the game, obviously.
Well, with the new ranking system, with all its bonus stars and win streaks its not a truely 0 sum system - you may gain many stars, while your opponent only loses one.
But yes, I agree, if you have a problem with the devs try and give feedback in a civil way. With specific and actionable feedback.
It’s a shame that such feedback rarely gets the attention it deserves
I don’t understand why Iskar acts like this is strictly a game community thing. Almost all online communities are toxic. He’s the lead designer so naturally when players have a problem with the game they’ll direct their feedback to him.
Now the people who send their feedback to Iskar don’t do it in the healthiest of ways, but that’s what you sign up for when you put yourself out there as the lead designer.
While it’s true gaming communities have become toxic, it’s a direct response to gaming companies having become more toxic. People show companies the same respect they get from the companies. Everyone knows gaming companies need to make money, but gaming companies have gotten greedier and greedier over the years. EA’s a great example of this: they used to be a beloved company, but they got so greedy over the times (over-the-top DLC, buying up competition only to close them immediately resulting in great game series going into limbo, etc) that eventually they were even voted as worst companty so much they won the award.
Same with Blizzard: compare them to how they started to how they are today.
Compare EA and Blizzard to CD Projekt Red for instance: finding a toxic gamer there is like trying to find Waldo. Why? Because they respect the gamers, and gamers worship them in return.
It’s not what you ask for if you actually work the PR problems when they happen via the supposed chanels they should be adressed in, yes the guy that made that comment on his twitter was way off place just to vent some frustation, but if your product is horrible in many different ways just for the sake of grabbing money don’t expect everyone to love you and consumers not to point out your already stablished bad practices.
Not reply to this, but to highlight or make aware of the reality of online toxicity and what I wrote earlier.
Comparison to IRL, there are also existence, but managed by various channels.
Online, there are much less channels.
For some, sub-consciously, have accepted that things are what they are and the modern age generations just need to learn and cope.
For some, negativity is unacceptable regardless.
What I want to say is, while we learn and cope with this “issue”, we also need to take the fight against the negativity.
22hrs later, 30+views, no appreciation even thou poster has put in much effort with edits and refinements.
As a community, what are we sending as a message to him/her?
Recently, we have seen some post of people that asked for help or “coached/help” others breaks personal best and attain new Rank heights. Are these what we should be concentrating on and participating in discussion more?
As a Dev/Mod, is there anything you can do to encourage/support these people?
or is it beyond what I sign up for?
(A simple is the least we could do. Every little thought and action helps.)
He said “The toxic culture in games really gets to me these days.” It seems you interpret too much into that. He didn’t said that it’s strictly a game community thing.
CD Projekt Red? Never heard of them. … Ah, the guys behind The Witcher and Gwent, etc.
Well, they’re also smaller, less popular and this “respect” of the gamers is more valuable for them. EA was probably also there once, and certainly Blizzard was there in their beginning.
So to me it seems the bigger the company the worse it gets when it comes to that “respect”. It’s really sad, but once they get that big they can almost do whatever they want. And what they want (and also need really) is more and more money. Pretty disgusting. You probably shouldn’t support it, but some games themself are just so amazing (like Hearthstone).
Well, I would never participate such a silly ritual. But yeah, maybe I should’ve been more respectful. I mainly found it funny that the guy also responded to something completely out of context as well.
That is the internet in general but I agree. And I have been banned for saying so on this or maybe the old forums. Yet everyone else can hurl insults and get away with it.
It’s fine to disagree and have difference of opinions. It’s unnecessary however to insult and it is an immature response, a high school or grade school bully mentality of putting others down to make yourself feel superior. Read any comments online and you’re going to see a lot of negative and toxic responses of people commenting insults.
You go to a well constructed tutorial and you’ll have hundreds of comments in the comment section about what an idiot the person is and how they don’t know what they’re doing, should’ve used this or did that. It’s only logical that in a game that requires so much time and commitment that the players will attempt to exercise their superiority complex by insulting others.
is the least we could do. Every little thought and action helps.)