Link? I’m surprised Papa Jeff would do something like this.
Actually, no they are not. I recently had a ticket asking for explanation why, when I owned many blizz games, could I not post on the d2 remastered forum. Long story short. I had to own a current copy that was currently installed to that account. Don’t say things that you have not even tested.
Back when he worked on the HotS team, AZJackson commented on what it was like to read the forums from a developer’s perspective.
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This is why I don’t blame devs, but Activision Blizzard. For mistakes you have to blame the company, but not the devs, who are just a small part of it. Except for the things the devs working for.
If the devs failed something and you know the obvious answer that is true, then you should can say what they did was wrong. Just do it in a more mature way.
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Wait… you are saying that an unmoderated constant complaint front page causes threads to be saturated from being responded by the devs??? 
Also the thread title is straight up click bait and just assumptions, better edit that, they’ve clearly said that they read threads, not respond to them, there’s a massive difference here.
I would suggest that his skin isn’t nearly as thick as he claims. Given the line, “Constructive feedback is fine, and when used properly is an important tool for improving your craft, but too much negativity is infectious,” it sounds like he sees constructive feedback itself as a negative response. Rather than it coming from a place of liking the core of their work, seeing rough edges in it, and wanting to see it refined further. Implying that his skin might be a little thin when it comes to criticism of his work. It’s possible that he misspoke and I’m reading into his word choice a little too much on this one, but that’s how it reads to me as is.
Everything he is mentioning here is something that any game developer should expect to hear when they release a game or update to the world. It doesn’t matter what you make or how good it is. There will always be people that do not like what you did. That is a given, you could name the most popular well-received games of all-time and you will find a plethora of people that hate them still. Every game developer should be prepared to deal with this.
As for the part about people saying that he or other people on dev team don’t care, and that makes him “sad.” Why? Why would that ever make you “sad?” If you know that they are wrong and that you and the other developers do indeed care, then this should in no way make you “sad.” Instead, you should be writing off this comment as wrong the moment you read it, secure in the knowledge that this person has no clue what they’re talking about. Again, this is a very thin skinned reaction to something that should easily be glossed over and disregarded.
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Meanwhile some devs get praised by talking to their forums like the one from the walking dead vr game
So it is really an personal problem
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But Kaplan did left, didn’t he? That rant could be the reason.
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Constructive responses don’t contain negativity. They aim to build up while at the same time criticizing something.
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The forums won’t let me post links for whatever reason but you can just search up “jeff Kaplan forum ban”. I can at least quote from the article.
The person who got banned simply said
“The balancing team needs replacement, [in my humble opinion,]” the user wrote. “This is outrageous.”
Kaplan retorted with
“Make a productive post either clearly stating an issue that you’re having or make a productive suggestion, “We won’t tolerate demands of ‘people being replaced’ on these forums. See you in 30 days.”
It might sound like a reasonable thing to do until you realize that people had been frustrated for months with poor balance changes and this user wasn’t even the only person suggesting that the balance team be shuffled or find new hires or something.
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lol
At least it was merely a suspension. I’m annoyed by how the word ban has replaced suspension.
Still really over the top and absurd punishment for something that isn’t that bad.
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The way he wrote it implies that constructive feedback is negative though. What you consider to be negative is subjective, and it sounds like he struggles to separate the two.
Papa Jeff will remain an enigma. Who knows what happened with his recent departure.
if it were only one sentence that drew the conclusion, then yes, the last modifier would suggest that the negativity ties back to the ‘constructive feedback’. However, meaning isn’t conveyed, or understood, strictly by the closest modifiers (or last used), then the ‘way’ he wrote is that the context is particular to negativity as is, with constructive feedback mentioned as something that has to be used ‘properly’.
What you suggest is more like a cart-before-the-horse reading; the point of concern expressed is excessive negativity, esp after a discussion devolves into assuming bad intentions. That is esp the case since understanding constructive criticism is as important as conveying it – people can project/interpret their own negativity out of anything regardless of intent, or effort.
If a person is consumed in too much negativity, then even the best of ‘constructive’ criticism can read as more negativity.
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If we took everything up to “improving your craft” as one thought separate from the negativity comment, then there would be no connecting train of thought from that to the negativity. The “but” at the beginning of the negativity comment does indeed tie it directly back to the constructive feedback comment. If the part about negativity were supposed to stand on its own, then it should’ve been a new sentence with the “but” and requires at least one additional sentence of context between the two. Instead, he used commas and connecting language. But, like I say, entirely possible he misspoke on that one, it happens. I’ve likely done so myself at least once in even my short history of posting here.
My main point in all of that though is as you say in your second / third paragraphs. He seems to read negatively into everything, which is a poor mindset.
Beyond that, (and this isn’t really part of the reply but leading into another thought,) even when there is actual pure negativity: Someone that hates you, hates your game, hates your company, hates a change, hates some aspect of your work, you should be ready to deal with that. You’re handling a product that is out for public consumption, the public is going to respond, and not everyone is going to like it or use their “niceness” filters. If you’re letting these things weigh you down, then you are too soft. That’s a personal problem that where you need to learn to take it on the chin and move on. Not because you want to cater to every jerk on the internet, but for your own sake; for the sake of your work, if nothing else. Running and hiding from your entire forum because you can’t handle reading mean comments is not a good solution.
Edit: And on the Jeff Kaplan thing, I really get the feeling that there’s a lot more that went into that sort of comment. Probably something along the lines of mounting frustrations from years and years and years with the company, and the way that employees have been treated more and more as expendable resources over that time.
I don’t have a source at the moment for it, but I remember listening to Mark Kern talk about development for World of Warcraft a while back. He mentioned how some people were concerned that they were going to be let go once the crunch to get the game released was over, and he promised them that wouldn’t happen, because that’s not how they did business. Then once the game was released, there were other people in positions of authority that thought differently, and that’s one of the reasons he decided to leave the company.
Jeff worked for Blizzard for a long time. I can see him being in situations similar to this, and that reaction being a product of his own frustrations.
linebreaks ≠= a paragraph, but they’re used for visual esthetics because reading is hard. The whole post is pretty much one paragraph that starts with concerns on negative feedback, and it concludes with not getting fixated on negative outlooks (ie, interpreting everything as negativity).
It’s weird your concern is "no connecting train of thought’ when that compound sentence includes ‘negativity’ in it. "constructive feed is an important tool, but… it takes a conscious effort to have a proper perspective so that you don’t get sucked into having an overly negative outlook.’
the different parts of that compound sentence have clauses that can be re-arranged to keep the meaning of the sentence, but emphasize different particulars. However, it seems like you’re fixating on cutting particulars out to pull specific negativity from what was written and… having noticed the irony of that.
Yes, multiple line breaks. Also known as a paragraph break. But, this is beside the point.
Then his line about using constructive feedback properly is what’s missing a connecting train of thought. He pulled the idea of constructive feedback out of the ether and placed emphasis not on negativity, but on the idea of constructive feedback itself with the completely irrelevant line about using it properly. The paragraph / line breaks further support this emphasis. If he wanted to tie the statement “but too much negativity is infectious,” to the previous paragraphs then he should have left out everything in the last paragraph / block of text between the words “fine” and “but.” Though even then it reads a bit weird, but at least it loses some of that emphasis. Removing everything up until the word “too” would’ve been even better.
Finally, the greater context of what he wrote further supports the idea of him seeing constructive feedback as negative to me. Because in the first two paragraphs he is talking about things people say that make him “sad,” that shouldn’t. It’s not a normal emotional response to some random person that doesn’t know you from a hole in the ground being wrong about you. Insulted, annoyed, or indignant maybe. But, “sad” is odd and suggests that he takes things a bit too much to heart. Which is why I read this as him taking constructive feedback as something negative.
Like I say once more, I’m perfectly willing to grant that he did not mean to imply that constructive feedback itself is negative and that I am reading into his choice of words too much. (Which is a particular from what I wrote that you seem to have cut out.) And honestly, I’d really rather not go back and forth for another thirty posts on this. Agree to disagree on how it’s read, I’d be happy to be wrong anyways because it would be nice if he didn’t see constructive feedback that way.
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If Blizzard is “communist” then feel free to call me HRH Queen Elizabeth II.
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I don’t blame developers for the disconnect with the player base, particular when it comes to multi-player games with substantial populations. I blame the players. Some of the worst people you’ll never (fortunately) meet are on these Blizzard forums. I try to read them for something useful or entertaining, but 99% of the posts are absolute crap. Perhaps this post is crap as well, but the bottom line is the developers are no longer interested in a relationship with a psychopathic player base. It’s useless to them, and they don’t care how you feel about it.