ggg likes their game more than their players?

"

Head_Less wrote:

If poe is art and then can be criticized, why is GGG so mad when people critics their works?
Yes some critic are almost close to insults but isn t it the artist fate to be surrounded by people not understanding them?

Citation needed.

"

gibbousmoon wrote:

Furthermore, devs read these feedback threads in silence for a *reason.*

The moment they poke their head in and post, it changes the entire dynamic and flow of a thread, making it much less useful to them, ultimately, as a source of feedback.

You should be happy the more serious threads don't have any GGG posts in them. It's an indication they are taking that thread seriously, and watching where it goes instead.

somehow I don't see something to be happy about when GGG fails, for the life cycle of several threads on a subject, to address the concerns of their players. If this is an echo chamber, it should be labeled as such.

As for changing the flow of a thread, that would be a good thing when the thread is about, say, the fundamental QoL flaws in the current summoner archetype. With the way those threads have flowed so far (with the exception of one where it was stated by a staffer, I think it was Mark, that they were "looking into" getting rid of the obnoxious noise that the revenants make) we are left to conclude that they don't give a shit.

Is that what they want?

Is there any hope to be held onto that they will fix the years-broken spectre issues?

Maybe they don't want to dash our hopes because we'll just stop playing that much sooner, and they have no intentions of fixing anything. They're just adding more cruft like the new tawm'r isley thingy. Putting makeup on a pig, as it were.

"

Head_Less wrote:

If poe is art and then can be criticized, why is GGG so mad when people critics their works?
Yes some critic are almost close to insults but isn t it the artist fate to be surrounded by people not understanding them?

Or the alternative fate, in which people posthumously spend fortunes pretending to grok the artist, such as the $36.5 million spent on this beauty:

^ That's fuckin gorgeous though.

A recent fave of mine



These pieces were at a gallery I went to recently, over 1000$ each..and the artist is a nobody

"

joachimbond wrote:

"

gibbousmoon wrote:

Furthermore, devs read these feedback threads in silence for a *reason.*

The moment they poke their head in and post, it changes the entire dynamic and flow of a thread, making it much less useful to them, ultimately, as a source of feedback.

You should be happy the more serious threads don't have any GGG posts in them. It's an indication they are taking that thread seriously, and watching where it goes instead.

somehow I don't see something to be happy about when GGG fails, for the life cycle of several threads on a subject, to address the concerns of their players. If this is an echo chamber, it should be labeled as such.

As for changing the flow of a thread, that would be a good thing when the thread is about, say, the fundamental QoL flaws in the current summoner archetype. With the way those threads have flowed so far (with the exception of one where it was stated by a staffer, I think it was Mark, that they were "looking into" getting rid of the obnoxious noise that the revenants make) we are left to conclude that they don't give a shit.

Is that what they want?

Is there any hope to be held onto that they will fix the years-broken spectre issues?

Maybe they don't want to dash our hopes because we'll just stop playing that much sooner, and they have no intentions of fixing anything. They're just adding more cruft like the new tawm'r isley thingy. Putting makeup on a pig, as it were.

I sympathize completely. I too have gotten frustrated to see certain issues be seemingly ignored.

You should probably separate the two distinct criticisms you are making, however:

1. Slowness to respond to legitimate complaints (via patching, or via communication in the forums that xyz will be patched or can't be patched because of reason abc, etc.).

2. Underparticipation in the feedback threads.

I'm talking specifically about criticism #2. Underparticipation is not necessarily indicative of them ignoring the thread's content. In GGG's case especially, it is quite often the opposite, and the lack of participation is for the reasons I already stated. GGG reads these threads assiduously. I criticize them for many things, but ignoring feedback is definitely not one of them.

For the record, I've seen Blizzard mods and mods of other games give similar reasons for often (deliberately) not posting in feedback threads. Once they post, they've muddied the waters, changed the dynamic, and killed much of the thread's usefulness.

Point conceded.

But damn. it would be nice to get a QoL update every quarter. You know, as in, "hey folks, we've been working on a way to get discharge and ST to not lag in party play" or "Revenants will soon be much quieter"

Really would it take all that long for ONE staff member to go to the different teams and gather what information relates to quality (QC) and gameplay (QoL) issues currently or soon being worked on? I used to do monthly updates for a large organization, and I'll tell you, it took me less than 20 hours to gather information from 30 different communal households around the world, and put it all into a monthly newsletter. Granted, those individual households had someone write up the info (ranging from a couple of paragraphs to 2 pages), but I was putting it into a hardcopy booklet format in Adobe InDesign. Web layout is MUCH easier these days.

On devs not caring about issues:
They care. If not for making the game better, than simply for wanting the game to be more successful so they have more cash to fold, they care. Of course they care. What people don't seem to understand is that "not responding" doesn't equate to "not caring". While it's tempting to argue that they should respond, you have to figure that with the game as big as it is now, and with the player base this game has, responding to each and every niggle we have with the game would be a full time job. And before you say it, no, that isn't what a community manager is for. Community managers aren't devs, they can't tell you why a bug exists or when it will be fixed.
For the really big things (Lockstep, trade improvements, new servers, issues with payments etc etc) they do talk to us... But with all the small stuff, I'd prefer it if the community adopted a "just wait and see" approach with the laundry list of issues we have with the game. Probably won't happen, but whatever. At the very least, chill out. Accept that they are working as hard as they can on what THEY see are the important issues. And working on the next expansion. And working on the next league. And working on new skills and uniques.
They depend on our constant input of money for their game to survive. They care. About us and the game, they care. So chill the fuck out.

On art:
"That which is created by man, and is not a tool used in the creation of other things, is art."
That's it. Pure and simple. And if it's art, it's ripe for criticism. As critics we should be honest and unbiased in our criticism, which gets harder and harder with such an interconnected world, but hey, that's another argument entirely.
The basic jist of my argument is that pretty much everything other than tools is art, and that too many people use it as a grandiose, greater-than-thou statement to shit on things they don't like. Like classically trained artists shitting on people who use tablets and photoshop. Or those people shitting on people who post MSpaint scribbles on 4chan. It's all art, you just don't like some of it. That does mean that Malevichs White on white is art too... And I think it's a lazy piece of crap. But hey, it's still art, and we can still talk about it and criticize it.
There are a few caveats though. I've got a list of things which I think can't be, or shouldn't be, art.
Sport, for example, I think, can't be art. You don't decide which team won based on performance. There isn't a panel of judges who decide which team "played best". You just look at the scoreboard. Sports are immune to artistic criticism, so they can't be art.
Food, I think, shouldn't be art. While you could easily get Alton Brown, Manu Feildel and Chairman Kaga to judge a cooking competition and decided who performed the best in the kitchen. They could provide a wealth of criticism. But I don't think food should be art, when poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five - (3.1 million children) each year worldwide. I don't think we should see something so basic and vital as food... as art.
There's other things, but those are the two most prominent examples of things that can't/shouldn't be art for technical/moral reasons.

I'm starting to waffle on a bit so I'll leave it there.

TLDR
Calm down, all is well.
Everything is art unless it's a tool.

I'm Scale Enlie,
And that's what I reckon.

"

joachimbond wrote:

Really would it take all that long for ONE staff member to go to the different teams and gather what information relates to quality (QC) and gameplay (QoL) issues currently or soon being worked on? I used to do monthly updates for a large organization, and I'll tell you, it took me less than 20 hours to gather information from 30 different communal households around the world, and put it all into a monthly newsletter. Granted, those individual households had someone write up the info (ranging from a couple of paragraphs to 2 pages), but I was putting it into a hardcopy booklet format in Adobe InDesign. Web layout is MUCH easier these days.

This is much more well reasoned and sensible than I thought it would be when I read, "Really would it take all that long...". Thanks for the refreshing post!

this thread reminds me on a suggestion (for alpha) from years ago: they could have a open bugzilla counterpart additional to their internal redmine ticketing system (with the non-public stuff) where they register and comment game issues.

that would make it much easier to see what problems exist, what's been worked on and what issues probably never get solved for whatever reasons.

i mean they openly support "community driven development", this would be a step further in this direction.
got noted down by chris but never commented on.

Awesome idea, vio.

Would take an organization with a healthy amount of both confidence and humility to do that, however. I wonder if GGG is able to step up to that standard. ;)