They deserve to be attacked. They’ve handled this whole situation about as poorly as possible. No communication, no discussion on the topic. Lied about why they removed rdf. And when it’s finally announced…they hide it in a video about Hardcore. With Aggrend ‘The Guardian of Classic’ immediately saying, “But we’re not saying anything more about it.”
So how are we supposed to react? “Thanks, Blizz. You guys rock!!” What message does that send? That they can spit in our faces, lie to use and string players along for a year and we’re grateful?
But what does criticizing them and the manner in which they announced this accomplish? That they’ll retreat even further away, interact even less (if that’s possible). Is that our fault? How can we then complain about lack of communication when they’re attacked anytime they speak to the players? It’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
At the end of the day, they’re supposedly the professionals. They’re here to do a job and provide a service. They go on and on about “We want the players to guide the future of Classic.” Don’t say stuff like that and then not follow up on it. Because the Classic Team clearly don’t care what we think or what we want. And I don’t say that because ‘Oh, just because they don’t agree with me on this particularly topic, doesn’t mean they’re not listening to the players.’ RDF is the most one-sided argument I’ve ever seen in the history of WoW. Even more so than when Blizz removed flying.
As you know I was anti-rdf in the past. I made a handful of posts about it. Only a couple, and you know why there weren’t more? Because they gained no traction. Because I was in the minority. I shut up when it became obvious most people didn’t agree with me. I’m perfectly fine accepting when my opinion isn’t popular and I don’t push it. In regards to RDF as I thought about it more and it become obvious the VAST majority of players wanted it in Wrath I got more and more vocal about it. I feel empowered when there’s a huge demand for something. Not that ‘majority rules’ is necessarily a great way make design decisions. However, on this particular topic that just happened to coincide with authentic Wrath, which I’m all about.
And Blizz gave a giant middle finger to those majority of players. Players who simply wanted to play Wrath again. Who wanted a system that was in Wrath in Wrath Classic. A system that would have provided a means to avoid the toxic, gatekeeping mess that existed because of its removal. And for what? To appeal to whom? Not for purists like myself. So I assume a combination of laziness and incompetence, and to serve their own egos. Which I’m more certain of now given the fashion in which they finally announced rdf.
Long story short: the Classic team are a bunch of arrogant clowns who resent the fact the playerbase opposed how they’re running this project. I think they should be more than criticized. They should be kicked to the curb and replaced by people who actually care about the game and the players.