Sure, people are allowed to think its disingenuous. But that doesn’t give them a right to harass the CMs.
edit: Also, I mean no offense to you, but I just don’t think Blizzard is EVER deserving of that type of response from the community.
I agree that these forums are a cess pool of negativity. But neither do I excuse Blizzard’s apathy towards the Classic community. Don’t forget, Blizzard isn’t your friend - you’re paying them for a service. That doesn’t excuse threats or violence, but Blizzard does have some responsibility to its players.
Anecdotally, I remember one of the first posts Kaivax made in the Classic forums was when they glossed over a series of other complaint and bug report threads and inadvertently responded to a white supremacist post from a gnome called “Proudboy” who was advocating Whitemane’s “superior culture” - since you referenced receiving vitriol from the start.
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Its not apathy. The forum’s have earned their treatment. They have actively driven CMs into silence with their behavior.
I agree, violence or threats are never warranted. Apologies, I was quite defensive over that.
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The issue is that Blizzard can’t take “responsibility” without being met with gross vitriol from the community. The vitriol drowns out any amicable / constructive communication.
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Consumers received what they paid for in full capacity.
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Not an excuse for no communication. I’ve seen posters treated as badly or worse than any Blizzard CM or dev. For that matter, I’ve been treated as badly. We’re still here. We don’t run off and snivel about people being mean to us. I don’t even report people for being over the top.
This is on Blizzard.
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That’s still apathy, friend. Maybe it’s warranted, maybe it’s not. But as a service provider with paying customers, cutting off your external stakeholder engagement will (and has) only made the situation worse.
I agree. It’s a rock and a hard place for Blizzard. But, again, choosing to ignore and disengage with that toxic culture only leaves it to faster and get worse - like a cancer.
Hence my comment earlier. I don’t agree with how people responsed, but I did think it was pretty foolhardy for the community reps to walk back into the forums and make such a thread as if nothing had ever happened.
Yes it is. Communication is a privilege. We as players have no right to the inner workings of Blizzard. They come on these forums as a show of good faith.
Blaming Blizzard for the way the community treats them is a real bad-take…and honestly really gross.
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The lack of communication is their fault because they made that choice.
Apathy means they dont care. This isn’t apathy. They’re making the active choice not to engage with a disgustingly toxic community.
Which they don’t owe you btw
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Blizzard is apathetic towards Classic WoW as a whole, I mean - not just the forums.
Anyway, I say all this having had a history of handling escalated stakeholders and complaints in previous roles. Often I was met with vitriol and animosity even though I knew I was in the right. But ignoring those complaints would only have made the situation worse.
Blizzard knows this, too. And noting this, again: I don’t know what they were expecting when they posted the happy anniversary thread after complicitly letting the forums burn for such a long time.
It was probably a mandated post. They had no choice. I know if I was in Blizzard’s position I would not have posted the anniversary thread if i had any choice what-so-ever.
This community is a dog that has consistently bit the hand that has been feeding it. And is now angry that we’re hungry because that hand isn’t feeding us anymore. And the super gross thing is people are saying that hand now deserves to be bit when it comes to feed us when we no longer deserve it.
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yea maybe because its the only time u get to have any contact with blizz devs ppl have built up resentment from all the years
Not for Blizzard. Not even the same thing.
Yes. They came to these forums to talk about changes, get feed back, banter with the community and show they were willing to exchange ideas and listen. They no longer do that and it isn’t because people were mean to them. It’s because they genuinely do not care.
Blaming the customers for the way Blizzard treats them is honestly gross.
Blizzard went from 10 million players to 5 million in a matter of WEEKS after WOD launched. Then they stopped disclosing their sub numbers and it was estimated in BFA that there were around 1.5 million players.
They DO NOT CARE. They don’t care because they’re making more money from tokens and mounts and other micro transactions than those lost subs. They DO NOT CARE if millions of dissatisfied customers ditched their product because they DO NOT CARE about making their customers happy - only about making money.
They don’t communicate with their players because they DO NOT CARE. They don’t banter or exchange ideas or talk about their reasons for changes because they DO NOT CARE what you think. But suddenly people trot out this total BS that they don’t communicate because they care that players get snotty with them??
The logic doesn’t even follow. Nor has Blizzard said anything of the kind. This is just another made up bunch of garbage by Blizzard cultists who don’t believe Blizzard should be held accountable for ANYTHING.
Talk about gross.
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We are not entitled to anything beyond access to these games. The fact Blizzard has any communication what-so-ever is something they give us for free. Its a bonus, a privilege…and the fact you feel you’re entitled to it baffles me.
This is such an absurdly cynical take that I simply cannot take it seriously. They don’t post here any more because people threaten, harass and insult any blue text they see.
Blaming the people doing the threatening, harassing, insulting is usually how blaming works. Saying the victims deserve to be threatened, harassed and insulted is disguising.
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They still come to the forums… just sparingly because they know how they will be treated. Why do you think blizzard CMs are much more active in other forums outside of General Discussion forums? I’ll give you a hint, General discussion forums are often the cesspool of unwarranted vitriol that they obviously do not have/want to subject themselves to.
Lore said how much the vitriol from the community has affected him.
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What could they possible say? ‘No changers’ won over a year ago. It should be expected that their interaction with classic would be very limited. It only takes 1 or 2 people to work on classic. So it has nothing to do with lay offs.
What a load of tripe.
People simper on about poor, poor Blizzard like they’re unable to do anything about over the top posts. Post gets deleted, poster gets a forum ban. Done and done.
I got a permanent forum ban for the way I talked to Ghostcrawler. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. I only got unbanned when they redid the forums, which was probably an oversight, but here I am.
And guess what? Ghostcrawler kept on posting. I’m not positive but I’m pretty sure he never went to a dark corner to weep about how people talked to him. He also had as many fans as he did detractors.
Players made fun of Lore’s hair CONSTANTLY. And yet, he never changed it or cut it or wore a hat the next time he made an appearance. He laughed it off and continued to do what he did.
This player idea that Blizzard is comprised of delicate, fragile beings who can’t take criticism isn’t even realistic.
You’re right about one thing. Blizzard doesn’t owe us any communication. But there are companies out there who genuinely care about their customers and love interacting with them. And we as customers love these companies. Players would like for Blizzard to take us into account. They would love to see Blizzard post on their own forums like they used to. They would love to have Blizzard treat them with something other than contempt.
But again, Blizzard doesn’t care about their customers.
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