Here's why you, and everyone like you, are an idiot. Blizzard puts on these conventions because they're great PR. All that fan aticism is good for the bottom line. Otherwise they wouldn't bother with them. "Look at our fans! We've got such great fans! So much devotion! So much positive energy! Spread the word!"Originally Posted by Sulphur
But then, when those exact same fans express a dislike for something instead of the usual torrent of likelikelikekekeke, suddenly they're whiny entitled bitchy manchildren. This view is the height of smug hypocrisy. Either encourage both positive and negative feedback from fans, or don't encourage any of it. Companies don't get to pick and choose as pleases them. THAT is being whiny and entitled.
I think you're confusing me with someone working for Blizzard. Blizz's PR meltdown is their own. Could it have been handled better? Yes, obviously. The fans' reactions and what they spew onto the intertubes is also their own - if you don't like something, be displeased, but barfing your ire all over reddit and Twitter is not going to win you sympathy points. Easy to understand now?
I'm with Zylon. Your being a bit whiny about it. You don't just get to have only good praise be welcome and accepted. Both, or none.
I won't lie, while I really don't care if you're not the greatest at reading comprehension, it's interesting that ZB's going that route too. Maybe my first post was too subtle.
Btw:
If that forecast is right, then it might be the reason why big publishers are trying to have one more go at the mobile market right now.
Sulphur, to paraphrase The Big Lebowski:
They're just nihilists. Nothing to worry about.
Provide the receipts to back up your claim. Eg 2008 screenshots vs. 2012 finished game screenshots. Non-parody examples, of course.
Anyway if the Diablo Immortal backlash has taught us one thing, it's that gaming journalists are massive hypocrites. Every time they complain about the likes of depiction and/or treatment of fictional characters; the range of cosmetic diversity of fictional characters; when a developer chooses to be apolitical and/or bipartisan in the presentation of IRL political talking points; etc we can turn their own strawman arguments designed to shut down critical discussion back on them. You're an entitled adult child who throws their toys when you don't get what you want. Not every game is made for you. Don't like it? Don't buy it.
Last edited by EvaUnit02; 18th Nov 2018 at 12:41.
And if you complain about the direction of a series then your an "entitled adult child", but if your singing their praise then your a true fan.
Stupid age we live in nowadays.
See if they had 2 games simultaneously showing, 1 a major divergence (ala Diablo Immortal) and 1 which sticks to the formula (eg Diablo 4), then it'd be all good. But all we got to see was Immortal. If you look back to many years ago, The Bureau - XCOM Declassified was shown and people complained a fair bit about it at first since it varied greatly from the traditional XCOM formula. But then Firaxis announced their game in the franchise which was very much sticking to the formula, which made The Bureau fine, since you had choices (plus Xenonauts was announced around the same time if I remember right).
Gah, I really don't have to justify myself to an argumentative edgelord who thinks contradicting everything and being snide is social interaction.
I'm sure this is yet another petty forum attempt to one-up someone rather than actually have an interesting conversation, so I tell you what; as you're sure you're right, why don't you pull out your trump card and provide the screenshots?
Me, I may just go play some Diablo 3 and have fun with it.
The burden of proof lies on the one making the claim. Your ad hominem doesn't count as receipts, sorry sunshine.
I don't have to prove anything "sunshine", as opinion is purely subjective in this matter. If you're referring to the pre-release screenshot that showed a rainbow over a waterfall, I thought it was a nice graphical touch. Dumbass forum warriors like yourself thought it was the end times.
And you keep using the word "receipts". In the words of Inigo Montoya, I do not think that word means what you think it means.
On top of which, are you really that incapable of googling?
Fuck it, in the name of placing the stupid firmly in its place:
2008 Gameplay Footage:
My machine 5 minutes ago:
What a huge difference the fan outcry made! /s
The second one is a lot moodier tbh.
I think what most of you are missing here is that literally no one is saying people shouldn't dislike things. Just that there is a huge difference saying you dislike a decision in an adult manner and booing and swearing at developers, sending them death threats, and acting entitled for them to do whatever you want. That's what I'm saying, and I'm pretty sure that's what Sulphur is saying. Saying you 'loathe' a game you've never played that isnt actively harming the world in any way is very over the top.
Interesting that most of that mood comes from post-processing and that the base assets are almost identical. Almost like the lighting engine is one of the last things to be finalised
In particular, I remember at the time the "community" complaining about the almost painterly vegetation. Yet that effects is pretty much unchanged between 2008 and release.
In case it's not clear, I'm very much with Sulphur and yourself here in that I think a lot of this drama is driven forward by people whipping themselves up in to a frenzy, finding fault where there is none, and becoming polarised at extremes due to not being able to interpret or communicate nuance and moderation in online communication. And I suspect they very much enjoy the shitstorm that develops around them.
I'm also aware that I myself was in danger of falling in to that category with my above posts. But it just drives me a bit mad when certain people here only post in order to create or amplify controversy.
They post almost nothing else. At which point I am forced to ask why the hell do they come to this forum in the first place? It's obviously not to make friends. Which is a massive shame, because there are some most excellent people here.
That is exactly and literally what you (and Sulphur) are complaining about.
If you guys were complaining about death threats, doxing, harassment, and so on, nobody'd take issue with you. That's wrong and people shouldn't do it. But you're actually complaining about expressions of dislike.
Look. Right there. You did it again. I underlined it in case you missed it. You are literally complaining that they complained that they don't like it. Full stop. That's what you're doing.
Let me make myself entirely clear. I don't care what anyone thinks about Diablo Immortal. I don't even particularly care about the game, and there is a good chance I won't play it (though I am more likely to play it than Diablo 3, but definitely not at launch). People can dislike the game all they want. There is a big difference in the amount of energy and investment in saying you're not interested in something, you dislike it, or you full on loathe it - these are not synonymous. It's a matter of degrees, and the latter involves a serious investment and blowing things out of proportion. I'm sorry if that nuance is lost on you. And yes, Blizzard has a history of receiving death threats from their fans when they do something the fans don't like. I have zero doubt that it's happening right now.
I agree with all of this. You articulated what I'm getting at better than I did.Interesting that most of that mood comes from post-processing and that the base assets are almost identical. Almost like the lighting engine is one of the last things to be finalised
In particular, I remember at the time the "community" complaining about the almost painterly vegetation. Yet that effects is pretty much unchanged between 2008 and release.
In case it's not clear, I'm very much with Sulphur and yourself here in that I think a lot of this drama is driven forward by people whipping themselves up in to a frenzy, finding fault where there is none, and becoming polarised at extremes due to not being able to interpret or communicate nuance and moderation in online communication. And I suspect they very much enjoy the shitstorm that develops around them.
I'm also aware that I myself was in danger of falling in to that category with my above posts. But it just drives me a bit mad when certain people here only post in order to create or amplify controversy.
They post almost nothing else. At which point I am forced to ask why the hell do they come to this forum in the first place? It's obviously not to make friends. Which is a massive shame, because there are some most excellent people here.
Last edited by froghawk; 18th Nov 2018 at 15:42.
Yeah, I'm sorry that nuance is apparently lost on some people, too. It's interesting how a bluntly phrased bit of criticism riles people up, isn't it? It's doubly interesting how some picked up only that part, and used it to lose the rest of the message.
So:
I'm not sure how much simpler I can make this. If you actually think anyone's calling to shut down all criticism here, despite repeatedly calling out that the manner of criticism is important, you're just devolving this into a my side/their side situation because you're either unable or unwilling to parse an opinion that swings into neither extreme of the spectrum.
Last edited by Sulphur; 18th Nov 2018 at 15:55.
I've heard several arguments that they will still likely make a lot of money using this model, but doubtless they really need to work on PR. I don't understand why there is so much hostility towards the fanbase.
I don't have much of a stake in this; I've enjoyed all the Diablo games to date and I've liked the craftsmanship that goes into the Blizzard games I've played. They did screw this up in terms of PR and I do understand the frustrations of a player base - but I also think that fandoms tend to have an overinflated, petulant sense of entitlement, and this very quickly makes me lose patience with them. Over the decade, so many people who'd identify themselves as the "true fans" of this or that IP have proven toxic, spouting stuff along the lines of "you owe me" and "you betrayed us", and as much as I appreciate fan disappointment, as soon as it gets like that my sympathy for them is very, very limited. Doubly so if it's the kind of hyperbole we got with the supposed rainbowification of Diablo 3.
IMO it's kind of mutual disrespect and using language as a weapon to achieve certain goals for both sides. "True fans" are often very vocal, entitled, whiny, and generally this is a bunch I prefer stay away from. But corporations are very disrespectful to their audiences, both in terms of the way they speak about their customers behind the scenes, and how they design their games now. Basically, gamers are super gullible bunch of junkies. Does the drug dealer respect his customers? Of course not, he will tell them everything they want to hear, but he'll be doing worse and worse stuff to keep them hooked. At some point the disdain for the customer, especially among higher-ups, is so high that they're sure they'll buy anything. And IMO that's what happened at BlizzCon, they didn't care, because "you'll buy it anyway". You whined about microtransactions, lootboxes, but you bought every installment of CODs and FIFAs anyway. That hubris cost them like 12 bn USD so far?
And on the language level, while fans are rabid and agressive, corporations have this culture of "tyranny of being nice". We can exploit you in every way possible, but no, you can't protest or display any stronger emotions about it, let's talk about it in our polite, sugar-coated corpo-speak. At this point I'm not sure if that's something that was derived from English culture itself, this superfluous tone of politeness and interest on the outside with no true intentions inside, or from something else. Still, it can and is used as a weapon, mostly to disarm and discourage any criticism, especially any more harsh forms. And on the corporate media level, it lead to e.g. "polite omissions" when it comes to reviews. I stopped reading Eurogamer when around the reviewers started to evade problems like lootboxes or, like with DX: Mankind Divided, didn't even mention that the main quest is rushed and unfinished.
By this line of thinking, everyone should have been singing Command and Conquer 4's praise. Oh wait that sold really bad. Dayam.
If that's what you think, then you're welcome to that. Myself, I think that you read that entirely into what I wrote, and I can't even see how you'd arrive at it.
There are millions of ways to react that don't involve kowtowing or calling for a jihad on the developer. It's not an either/or situation. How difficult is that to understand?
Edit: Gah, not for you, Thirith.
Blizzard is not the company it once was.
Not since Bobby Kotick has been in charge.
Bobby Kotick Wanted To Take All The Fun Out Of Making Video Games.
I can tell you when I started to notice the change: August 5th 2009.
WoW has been downhill since then.
Activision's only goal is to make money.
They don't care how.
It shows because they 1) take their current customers for granted, and 2) are only interested in acquiring new customers.
This might make sense if you are upper management. Upper management in any company is mostly interested in the 3-12 month results.
But in the long run, you'll piss off every customer you ever had.
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