Sure, doesn’t change the fact he’s affiliated with the company and there is no reason at all to post comments like he did regardless of if its his personal twitter or not. and if thats what you believe tell that to the Anet employees who got fired for calling a fan out on Twitter. There is zero reason for the behavior if they want fans and people who support the game to behave perhaps the CM in question should stop acting like an inane clown himself.
This was not about the potion bug .
It was in regards to this.
Josh Allen 
@ devolore Mar 26
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a random musing, take it how you will: it really sucks seeing outrage about layoffs at game studios coming from the same people who say things like “everyone who worked on this game should be fired.” if you want to support game devs, do it BEFORE they lose their jobs too.
People took offense to this and even though I don’t say fire the guy this still reflects badly on Blizzard and despite what people say about it being his personal account . He is not protected by 1st Amendment right to free speech here and can be called to task by Blizzard for his opinions if they choose to do so.
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Oh, that tweet. For reals?
I am sorry, but its pointing out the toxicity in the community. The fact he is getting heat for it continues to show just how bad the community is. He makes a good point on the hypocrisy inside this community of being enraged and upset over the layoffs (which did legit suck) all the while demanding that Ion and the Dev team lose their job.
With the potion bug tweet I could partially understand player outrage, but knowing its actually about his tweet about the layoffs, I am sorry but community is extremely hypocritical and toxic in this regard.
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Yes people were calling for those working on the game to be fired but those that were let go were not on the development side and people voiced there displeasure over them letting go of the people that are supposed to be the ones to communicate with us especially when they are constantly going they need to work on communicating with the player base.
How does letting go of the people that communicate improve communications? .
Also Like I said even though it is a personal account any thing he says on it seeing how he has his employer linked to it ,holds him to company standards and is succeptable to diciplinary actions by them if they choose so.
His right to free speech does not protect him from any recourse from his employer or from individuals .His right to free speech as well as all amendments especially Amendments 1-10 only protect him from the Government.
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The sad thing is they don’t even seem to realize that they’re doing exactly the thing that Lore was criticizing them of doing in his tweet. Hate them when they’re there, hate the company when they’re gone.
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This here is the real crux of the matter.
The way things have gone over the last year or so has made this community the way it is. Posts like his, and yours only exacerbate the feeling within it.
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The thing is he shouldn’t have in his bio the first thing “WoW community manager” if its his private twitter because that alone provides a link to Blizzard and this really makes it not private.
Want to go off on a private twitter then don’t mention wow or blizzard at all.
You can’t reason with the Pitchfork Mob. All you can do is stay out of its way. I hope Lore takes this as a wake-up. When people are frustrated they go for the throat. I understand where he’s coming from, but like I said…it’s just not a good idea.
Believe it or not, I do sympathize. Precisely because I have trouble keeping my mouth shut myself.
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No, Lore quite literally tried to weasel out of this whole mess by claiming he was talking about EA, not Blizzard at all, so what you just said is actually a complete and utter lie. His tweet and followups never said a single thing about people treating “Blizzard employees” poorly, because by his own account he wasn’t talking about Blizzard.
You probably shouldn’t accuse others of misrepresenting people when you’re doing that exact thing.
Lore’s followup:
also for context, it was the EA layoffs that got me thinking about this, not actiblizz
Now, either you believe this most dubious backpedalling, and his tweet never had anything to do with Blizzard at all, which makes this whole discussion moot, or he’s a liar, and is just too sleazy and cowardly to admit he was bashing players/fans of Blizzard games for daring to take the company to task.
Such sensitive people in this game. Nothing that was said was bad
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Are people upset because people feel he represents Blizzard and they don’t like that he made a good point? Not sure why people are upset, tbh. Same folks would probably boycott Crayola if they renamed the Macaroni and Cheese color.
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My guess is it’s the aftermath of the XP pot ban. Lot of people who want to play WoW suddenly can’t, because either they or their friends that they play with are suddenly on siesta. People are in withdrawal and cranky.
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Bottom-line is that this person is one of the faces World of Wacraft customers see. What he says on twitter has an impact on how those customers perceive the company even if he is using his “private” twitter account.
If the company feels that there are plenty of customers to replace the ones he alienated then what he wrote was fine. However, if the company needs as many customers as they can get, and cannot afford to lose those he alienated then he might want to think twice about what he says on his “personal” twitter.
I saw it as unprofessional.
according to him it was in regards to the ea layoffs tho it’s rather applicable to acti-blizz’s recent layoffs as well and some of the communities reaction to that.
my only issue with lore is I see him going the way of tseric all those years ago and having witnessed that I really don’t want to see it happen again.
on a primarily unrelated note I do kind of chuckle at the outrage over the xp potion bans myself having lost an account at the tail end of tbc for doing something incredibly stupid it makes me chuckle seeing the outrage over suspensions
Lore links his personal account to his professional account. It’s not private at that point.
More importantly, it’s seen as a developer who is just “screw off” to the community. There may be times they absolutely feel that way, sure. However, if I worked at a store and on my days off chastised customers for being ridiculous outside, I’d likely be fired
I fail to see how Twitter, and social media in general, isn’t the literal modern digital translation. We either go all in or we don’t. If we go all in, he can’t trash talk, or make it look like he’s disparaging the same people he’s trying to develop games for. It just doesn’t work on a psychological level, it doesn’t matter what it “should” be. He’s still standing outside of blizzard shouting at people he’s supposed to be listening to, developing for, and overall trying to understand.
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And one would think that as a Community Manager, he’d recognize the dangers of doing this.
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“Snarky” is a term I dislike so I’ll have to say yes, they should be. They’re not customer service while on their own time so they have the freedom to say what they will.
We may not like it, but that’s how it is and how it should be. For everyone.
A CM can be snarky wherever they damn well choose.
You have the right to refuse to give them your money if you don’t like it, but they aren’t beholden to your standards on discourse. Now if they break company policy that’s a different matter entirely, but they’d be an ex-CM in that case.
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Ythisens was laid off. Not for cause or conduct, but due to Activision-Blizzard (the holding company that owns Activision, Blizzard, King Games, and Major Leage Gaming) forcing the layoffs.
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You should see some of the stuff Lore and the others have to deal with. You’re only seeing his reaction to the more obnoxious among us. He and quite a few others at Blizzard have received tons of hate from all walks of players, and have even had to deal with real life death threats. You know, the kind the FBI get involved in.
Now, frankly Lore has about as much tact on his twitter as I do (which is to say, not a lot), but it is his personal account. Like what he says or not, I’m sick of seeing people lose their livelihoods over stupid things like others’ opinions and “being offended”, since literally everything is offensive now. Lore could hate me outright and I’m still going to tell him to just be himself and not take the BS. We can’t exactly call him out on any of it without admitting our own faults in the matter now, can we?
I’m not happy with what has happened to the game, though in my case that’s a physical access thing more than a content or gating thing (Blizzard took away my ability to even play at a physical level), but I won’t go directly attacking them either. Does Lore directly attack others on his twitter? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But there is that other side of the coin that we’re on as well. He wouldn’t be on the offensive if there were nothing to rant about, just the same as we wouldn’t be on the offensive about the state of the game if there were nothing to rant about.
Neither side’s innocent here. But if you’re going to call for his head, then you’d better be willing to hand over yours too. Otherwise, you’re a hypocrite.
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Freedom to say what you want does not protect you from being let go of your job or being sued it protects you from the government from coming after you for speaking out against it and it has always meant that.
Never has it been a free pass for one to say what ever they want about any person on entity other then those in the government.
As for not being customer service on his own time . No he is not when he posts something that doesn’t reflect on Blizzard or is not involved in any activity that ties into his work . However the second he does say or does something that reflects poorly on his employer he is now representing his company.
This has always been a rule in business preceeding the internet. Now with people having so much access to what people say and do , people need to watch what they say and do .
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