I had several posts (criticism of the game) that were upvoted to the moon by the community that the mods deleted and then silenced my account…they silenced my account for “toxicity”.
So now criticism of the game or how the company is handling the game/community is considered toxic.
I guess Blizzard is trying to turn their official forum into their reddit sub as well. Where criticism is highly censored and its nothing but an echo chamber of how wonderful Blizzard, their policies, and their game is.
Forum Moderator Note: Discussion of Disciplinary Action is against the Forum Code of Conduct, so this topic has been closed.
Not accepting criticism is nothing new from heroes of the storm, its been like this with blizzard for a long time, you only have 2 real options in blizzard games.
Play the game and accept whatever blizzard does.
Or don’t.
Pretty much this. I was banned on the WoW forums for a week because I dared to criticize Ion Hazziko- I mean, Jesus.
I’ve gone back to League, personally. I still check in to see what the state of the game is like (since I do prefer HotS’s formula to other mobas, but hate its shoddy execution), but I do not play QM/unranked with any regularity. I stopped playing ranked after I got matched against a full GM HGC team (Team TraitValue) with my buddy and I, two golds, and a silver on my side.
That kind of matchmaking would never have happened in League or Dota. You only see that crap in HotS.
Reddit has been strangled for years now. Blizz controls the narrative because they have moderation there and made it the official place. Now eelverybody feels the sudden change because they made this forum and brought their people from reddit to moderate here.
Dystopian stories never end well. The simple choice is whether to maximize short term profits and censor legitimate criticism…or take the narrow road, practice humility, work hard, conduct yourself honestly and prosper over the long term. The choice made here is very clear to those with not just eyes but vision.
To be clear, are you saying you got silenced for something you wrote on the forums, or were you forum silenced for being reported as toxic in the game? There’s a significant difference.
I was silenced for critical comments I made about the game. The mod deleted my posts and silenced my account for “toxicity”. My posts had upwards of 2 dozen community likes.
Well the only question did you use any sort of offensive language in it? This usually the thing that trigger these deletions which is strange enough, mods usually just do mass edits in removing most of the language.
The fact that you’re years late on blizz’s behavior is laughable. You don’t need to cuss or anything and you’ll get suspended/banned. It’s called controlling the narrative. If they control what people see from other players, they can pretend the problems don’t exist so people like you go on playing the game and paying them money.
In a healthy market the customers are always critical of the seller and by default side with fellow customers (because we are on the same side of the equation by default) … this behavior forces the seller to improve the product and provide the product at a better value which earns more sales down the road as well. It’s a win win win for all.
In video gaming though, it’s literally one of the only markets i know where the customers/buyers default position is to defend the seller AGAINST their own best interest. Especially when it comes to Blizzard. It’s almost like Blizzard isn’t a seller in this market but a cult leader or something.
Well, then you are lying or not telling the whole truth. They don’t suspend you for “critical comments.”
You get forum suspensions for specific reasons, and those reasons do not include constructive criticism. If you are unable to make your criticism constructive, then that is your problem. It has nothing to do with criticizing the game, and everything to do with being civil while you criticize the game.
That’s ridiculous. You don’t “side” with someone just because they’re another customer. That’s so one dimensional and short-sighted.
Actually, what’s (almost) unique about video games is you have people who seem to think they need to be causing a riot about every tiny little detail that they might not personally like. I say almost because you get this surrounding movies and TV shows to an extent as well. Really, it’s just the internet empowering people to behave badly, I suppose.
if there’s anyone being completely honest about everything and is holding themselves to an extremely high standard of self accountability, it’s the OP and the chanting supporters.
The current state of this forum is testament to the fact that it is not headed in that direction. Everywhere I look, it seems that there’s someone saying that HotS is dead, that the devs suck, that Dabiri leaving is the last nail in the coffin, etc etc. It seems that over 75% of the most recent threads are all in this vein– either that, or about how Mal’ganis sucks and is OP. Nobody seems willing to discuss the game’s flaws in a civilized manner, with constructive criticism. Instead it’s all “Abandon ship! Abandon ship!”, with a good helping of bitter whining and negativity. Nobody will ever get Blizzard to listen to them that way.
If the moderators were really acting with the sort of totalitarian censorship you describe, then this forum would be roughly 75% shorter. And this thread would have already been deleted.
I predict that this thread will soon be locked for discussing disciplinary action, which is against the code of conduct, and not relevant to the topic of Heroes of the Storm gameplay– which is what this forum is for.
Maybe not, but they do look for excuses to suspend people who make critical comments. Especially since the new forums went up, you will regularly see reasonable comments deleted because they said largely inoffensive words like “damn.” Meanwhile posters who openly swear and insult but in support of Blizzard are left completely alone.
So, yes, in the end, they really do punish people for critical comments. They use excuses to cover for their censoring, but they are targeting people who are critical of Blizzard. Their subjectivity in applying their own rules is clear as day.
Expecting a company who abuses or mistreats some customers to abuse or mistreat others is perfectly reasonable.
What is “one dimensional and short-sighted” is acting like an indignant apologist for them and telling the stiffed customers that they had it coming just because it hasn’t happened to you yet.