Nope. I have been here from the beginning, and have read more of this forum than most people. The lack of interaction is what caused things to be hostile. This forum was no more hostile than any other forum in the beginning. And things went downhill the more problems were ignored.
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To be honest, how it started makes no real difference for me (aside for making sure it doesn’t happen again).
We are here now.
With AndyB, Blizzard are trying to be better. Now we must also try to be better.
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No, gamers being terrible human beings are the only cause of gamers being terrible human beings. No one makes them that way. Take some personal responsibility.
I think the rework suggestions are still important, but that’s primarily to give context to the qualitative commentary associated with those changes, and a concrete example of what’s a problem and what direction to go to fix it.
But just non-stop grumbling, unstructured walls of text, and “well I tried posting last year, so that should be good enough”, isn’t enough.
Here people report you and your account is put on hold… Sooooo
Does that make the forums a negative vibe echo chamber?
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Why should I take personal responsibility for others behavior? And I have real experience with this. The companies that have the super supportive playerbases, have developers that show they are listening to their feedback and are friendly to them. You’ll never eliminate all the toxicity, there are hundreds of people using a forum at any given time. Not all of them will be great. But a lot of people get frustrated when people don’t listen to them, it is human nature.
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Focused feedback threads are something I can take into consideration. Normal caveats, no promises.
I tend to try to observe and be a participant in community conversation rather than leading it. I am self aware enough to understand that my presence in a thread is a way of guiding or leading community conversation, however I’d rather create space for players to help identify the best moments to jump in.
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I understand this totally
but this feels like message is in a way (and i dont mean to look mean or anything, i appreicate your communication!) propagating the fallacious sentiment that Overwatch forums are more toxic than reddit
Its like coming to the forums is somehow worse than going to reddit (which from my personal experience, is much more toxic in general than the forums)
i just dont really understand the forums are generally more avoided than the reddit (which like i said from my experience, is levels above toxic)
in fact, id argue that due to the way reddit is designed (i.e: downvoting system) its a far worse place to gather feedback from, as in reddit when you say a unpopular statement, you downvoted to oblivion and your opinion is effectively soft censored. which makes me feel like you would see less “unpopular” takes in reddit than in here, where unpopular ideas are in fact propagated, as the forums encourage discussion due to the lack of a “i disagree” button, and offers a visible comments/likes ratio (aka agree/disagree)
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By doing exactly what I’m doing in this thread 
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Well yeah. “Competitive” means esports, not ranked.
That’s no more absurd than excusing an entire forum’s behavior, as you are explicitly doing. You want to absolve them, I’m going to call that out as moral cowardice, because it is. Gamers being awful isn’t some niche opinion by hectoring puritans, it’s literally the most famous thing about gamers, across all demographics. The world doesn’t agree on much, but it certainly agrees gamers are awful, and you want to pretend that’s somehow justified by…game devs not talking to them? It’s so transparently false, it’s laughable.
Really do appreciate your comments on the forums AndyB!
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andy is our boy/girl.
protecc andy
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Well, the more standard feedback approach would be similar to the reddit post. I think there was one from the EU forums whether they had
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- A questions post, where people are asked to share their questions for the devs.
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- An answers post by the devs.
And there was probably a day or two between those posts.
Most of which would get shared back over to reddit anyways.
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A few thoughts on this
- with rare exception, I don’t believe that any community is wholesale more or less toxic than any other community. People are people, and people have complicated personal experiences. Everyone has bad days.
- Even communities as amazing as the Overwatch community go through difficult times. It’s 100% understandable that extended gaps in communication and engagement would manifest itself in ways that, on the surface, make it look like it’s a “toxic” space.
- As the team for whom the forums is a valuable community resource, it’s on us to help foster the kind of environment that’s a value add for both players and developers alike.
Different CMs will approach it in different ways. Personally, I appreciate the fact that we’re able to have a straightforward conversation about forum sentiment, and that I’m able to provide additional context to my presence in the community.
I’m normally loathe to call attention to praise, however I think it’s important for you all to know that I see this and have been paying attention. I am confident that together we’re on a path to making the forums a better experience.
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I normally agree with you on things Venus but here I must disagree.
While what you are saying is accurate I don’t think it’s constructive to think that way.
It’s kind of like bringing up stuff from the past when you and your GF have already decided to give it another try.
I’d rather look forward to be honest and I hope the toxicity can be minimized but it is currently not a good environment.
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And that’s not what people are doing. Myself and Jesterskull frequently make threads about support Symmetra.
You spend so much time on here. You can’t hold others to the same standard as yourself. I’m here for casual discussion and entertainment…not as a part time job.
This is my last thread regarding Support Symmetra and arguing why she should be a support.
The type of unhelpful threads Andy has outlined are the ones you are trying to push.
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Oh and further on this, what if there were regular hero-specific posts?
lets say that every X time theres a post “letstalk about X hero”
and it rotates every X time
so lets say you are about to rework, i dont know, bastion,
so you make “letss talk about bastion!” where you explain the developers train of thought on the matter, and ask people to explain their veiwpoints, their suggestions and experiences on the character
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I think it’s important to know where you’ve been to get to where you’re going. It’s not about bringing up negative things to bring them up, but to address a problem in a space where we’re having an open and honest discussion so it can be noted and moved beyond.
I think knowing some of the negative sentiment has been from the forums feeling ignored is something that may be helpful for Blizz to know so that we can work on improving things together.
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