There has been a recognition of not keeping this “promise” well, which is not exactly an “apologize” … but it is certainly the first time for something different. I have often heard Blizzard use terms that implicitly refer to what users did / hoped for and NEVER what devs did or didn’t. For example for WarCraft Reforged they used the phrase “the product is not what the players expected” (no real regret, on the contrary … he practically blamed users for making a mistake about the product based on their expectations rather than supporting their more than legitimate complaints).
I also remember a very unpleasant thing about Kaplan, which is also one of the reasons why I don’t like to read the excessive “sanctification” towards him in the forums: around the time of Baptiste’s release (an interview with Stylosa) there was talk about introducing Brigitte 1.0 into the game:
when he mentioned how they opposed the dive at the behest of the community (with Brigitte, arounf min 0:44 of video interview) the comment was "Be careful what you ask for”. I found it inappropriate to imply that it was the community that demanded the invincibility of Brigitte 1.0’s hybrid nature who decided to nerf her seriously after she got into comp, and not during hero testing.
Obviously, I can’t say that Keller is “”“better,”“” we have had almost no way of seeing how he relates to the community in his silence, but he is putting us in a context in which they have not kept the hoped-for perspective… not us.