Ghostcrawler weirds me out. Sometimes he is a reasonable fellow, answering with an obvious understanding of the player’s problems and the issues as a whole. He answers with intellect and knowledge, respectfully asks for opinions, and engages. I may disagree with the manner of engagement, as its spotty and haphazard, leaving players to rely on Blue Trackers (like I am for these posts) to figure out what the devs are planning.
And then sometimes he’s a complete ass. Take this example. Here a player makes an obvious QQ post. On balance, the player is wildly overstating their case. I’m guessing the player saw something that was just the last straw, and blew their top. This is the place that they blew their top. I’m not really sure what the point of the blizzard forums is, really, other than a place for players to go and discuss their experiences and feelings about the game with other players of the same game. This guy seems to be doing that just fine, though they’re being a jerk. Sure. But they’re not breaking the forum guidelines, else the post would be deleted (which it was later, though not before GC replied to it twice, so I’m not sure what prompted the deletion). What would you doin this situation, as a company rep tasked with communicating with the player base? Me, I’d ignore it. People gotta blow off some steam. Look at thier points maybe, see if you went too far or they have something to add to your discussions internally, but mostly, ignore it. You’ll fix things later and they’ll calm down.
Ghostcralwer does not, instead replying:
GHOSTCRAWLER PROMISED ME A PONY.
Incidentally, I believe posting in all caps is frowned upon
You’re kidding me, right? I have no way to check the context of this. Maybe the thread went off into the many things GC promised but never gave, like rulership over the cosmos or a cadillac with shiny rims. I don’t know now, because it’s gone. But he was responding like it was a thread he wouldn’t delete. Instead…he calls the player a whiner. Yeah, they are. You don’t say it though. You act with freaking diplomacy.
And I’m not talking about customer retention here. While I do think it improves customer enjoyment and retention to have solid, professional communication, I really don’t care. I care about being an adult. Act like an adult when you talk to other people, especially people you don’t know. Seriously. Even if they’re being childish…you still act like an adult in a professional capacity. Learn some diplomacy.
Now, perhaps we could have called this even here. It wouldn’t have been so bad, he could have played it off as just being light-hearted poking. But no, he posts again later:
The worst part is, I’m ready to bet if the form of the feedback given by the OP was different, GC wouldn’t be tempted to respond like this. To those QQing that the blues are #!%@**%s and that they’re lying bastard who never keep their promises, step back, take a look at yourselves and realize that they owe you nothing.
I’m sure if the OP had said “Are you guys still planning to make fire PvP better? What you’ve added so far doesn’t seem to be helping” instead of “WHY ISN’T FIRE GOOD YET? YOU BROKE YOUR PROMISE!!! QQ” that GC would have had a better response and that we’d all get a better game out of it even if the devs don’t “design by comitee” (which is a damned well good thing considering the state of these forums).
I’ll quote this guy.
We want to make these forums a place for serious discussion. A lot of that has to do with the way you communicate. Any thread that starts off, or has a healthy does of, “Blizzard doesn’t get my class and hates me and breaks promises” isn’t getting us there.
Do not QQ. Do not insult the developers or other players. Do not demand changes. Do not make threats.
If you think someone is wrong, explain why. If you think something isn’t working, explain why.
If you aren’t sure how to communicate the way we want you to communicate, then just read and don’t post.
I probably won’t come back to this thread, so I would not post here with the intention that I see it.
What seems to be going on is a push for a more heavily moderated forum. But I haven’t seen any coherency to it. It’s not an organized push, it’s more “What makes GC happy?” Apparently players need to figure out what GC thinks is funny and what he doesn’t and only post in that context. Can we not spell this shit out somewhere so the players at least know what’s going on? Honestly, I’m of the opinion you should have official forums. The community will sort that shit out themselves, believe me. Or just do what Eve Online does and allow your forums to be a melting pot of mockery, idiocy, drama, and geniune goodwill. Of course, the quirky relationship CCP has with their players is probably not replicable anywhere else.
First, GC doesn’t have a leg to stand on in the context of this thread. He responded just as childishly as the poster. Your credibility is a little shot after that. So he quotes this other poster to try and explain that he only wants rational discussion of “srz bsnss”. So let’s talk about the post GC is quoting. Does blizz owe the players anything? Nothing but their livelihood. While I don’t feel like Blizz should bow to every whim of their players in the context of the game, that’s because they’re servicing a large number of players. The players are paying them to provide a service they enjoy. Thus they need to make an enjoyable service…for all their paying customers. Doing what one paying customer says probably offends 50 more. So presumably the designers are trying to look at the game from a point of view slightly removed from any individual customer perspective; from a point of view which looks at the overall, total enjoyment generally derived from their customer base as a whole. But they do owe their customers something in exchange for the voter the customers make with their dollars. At least, I tend to be optimistic about that. Taking the rather more elitist attitude that you’re serving up a meal that’s mostly being dragged through the dirt by a herd of swine, and you really ought to treat them as such, seems…pompous. And borders dangerously on putting one in the uncomfortable position of being wrong about the fact that you are the swineherd, rather than an over proud hog yourself.
The quoted poster IS correct that the original poster should have phrased themselves with more fucking politeness, rather than whining. That’s true. But that doesn’t make GC’s absurd response any more excusable.
On to GC’s additional response. He doesn’t get to have a serious forum if he can’t be serious. Leaving that aside…I’m getting the impression GC is angry. What exactly got under his feathers to prompt this? And where should players talk angrily? I guess other forums? Why the hell would they do that, when they have an official forum to do it on? Tell me, do you plan to start banning posting privileges for people being irritated with you and saying so childishly? How far does that go? What happens when they come back and do it again? I guess we’re ok with them just never coming to the boards? Is that roughly equivalent to telling them “We don’t want you here, go away”? Would you ban their game accounts for repeat offenses? Would you ban someone from your game for being a whiner? Seriously? You have never in your life whined, or gotten angry enough to say something you shouldn’t? If you have, should we ban you?
I know I leapt to the extreme, but that is the logical progression of steps: if someone is being whiny, you delete their post and warn them. When they offend again, you ban them. When they continue to do so…what do you do? You drive them out. You drive them out of the forums, and potentially out of the game. I’m not sure that’s a road you want to go down. I don’t think you want to get rid of those players. I think many of them are your base. And frankly, condescending assholes can do their whining significantly more politely than the more emotionally passionate, and yet it is still whining. And they sound more pompous about it. DO we ban them? Do we make game entrance about personality?
Granted, the game is a community. So personality and social interaction do end up dictating a lot of how the game community acts. But does the developer team really want to be in the position of attempting to dictate the personality type of their player community?
I think GC is missing the point of the forums, and is trying to force something on to them that is incompatible. The forums are not just a place for reasoned communication between players and developers. It’s not just a place for rational analyses about classes, and socratic debates about balance, completely bereft of emotion. It’s also, and in the main, a place for the community to talk. It’s what they expect: here is their palce to be a community, to sort out their community issues and deal with each other. Trying to wrangle that into a the rough equivalent of a WoW debate competition is like trying to convince everyone in a highschool to not act like, well, highschoolers. Good luck there, pal.
And I think his misunderstanding is really communicated here “If you aren’t sure how to communicate the way we want you to communicate, then just read and don’t post.”
That’s telling many players “Look, if you don’t get it…this isn’t for you. Watch your betters. You’re not really part of this.” The Elitist Jerks forums are called that for a reason. They can afford to take this attitude and moderate their forums appropriately (though the level of jackassery there between people is pretty high. They don’t suffer fools kindly). Can the official forums of a game afford that?
You sir, are an idiot.
I think you go a bit too far with your conclusions here and also only look at things from the POV of the OP you talk about and not from GC’s POV. GC and his team reads dozens of customer posts daily and are obviously hurt when many people basically call the product they pour their professional careers into a giant steaming piece of trash. Every once in a while the blizz devs get so worked up by reading a endless procession of negative posts in the forums that they respond in kind doesn’t prove that they’re unprofessional it proves that they’re human and if the community keeps crapping on them eventually their feelings will be hurt and they will lash out. That post was probably deleted because after GC cooled down a bit he felt bad about his unprofessional out lash towards this customer and didn’t want it left out there to feed the trolls who read too much into situations like this.