Dev Post EricMusco Posted May 7, 2015 Dev Post Share Posted May 7, 2015 Hey folks, I feel the need to make this post after some things happened yesterday. Yesterday, John made some posts communicating our views, and looking for feedback, around the state of Sentinels and Marauders. We knew going in that some of what we were going to say might not be what players wanted to hear, but the Combat team felt it was very important that you understood how we view things from our side. We may disagree on some things, but if all opinions are on the table we can have a better and more informed dialog about it. However, following the posts John made yesterday, a few players formed a witch-hunt against John. These players tracked him down on some of his personal accounts and in some extreme cases, even those of his family members with the sole purpose of harassing, insulting, and threatening him based on those forum posts. The purpose of our forums, of our subreddit, and other official channels is to have a dialog. We know that sometimes we may disagree, and that’s ok. We want to have those hard conversations, we want to talk about what we can do to improve, and to pass on our thoughts on how we see things from the Development side. But taking that conversation off of official channels to make personal attacks against Developers is completely unacceptable. Please understand John didn’t need to communicate his perspective about the class. John and the Combat team knew giving their views on Sentinels and Marauders, in some cases, would not be received well, but he did it anyway. The alternative, is that we stay silent. If the reaction of this community is to go out of your way to personally harass someone we will stop having a dialog. How can we, as a Community team, ask the Combat team to put their opinions out here if some of you are going to react this way? We know there is unhappiness in the Sent/Mara community and we genuinely want to continue having an open discussion with all of you. But, it’ll require regular dialog, respecting each other’s opinions, and very importantly, not harassing anyone who is participating in the conversation. That means, we all need to hold ourselves to a higher standard and be accountable for our actions. Thank you. -eric Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excise Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 Damn, I didn't realize people were that nuts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arlon_Nabarlly Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 Wow, I knew the community was toxic, but that's ridiculous. I'm ashamed that I'm part of this community. Just shutdown the forums if people are gonna act like that. I've always said the toxicity of the forums is why we don't get more communication, this post is proof of that. You guys want better communication, treat the staff like human beings and talk to them the way you would talk to them face to face, not the way you talk on the internet... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mkwerner Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 However, following the posts John made yesterday, a few players formed a witch-hunt against John. These players tracked him down on some of his personal accounts and in some extreme cases, even those of his family members with the sole purpose of harassing, insulting, and threatening him based on those forum posts. That is absolutely ridiculous. I'm so sorry to hear that he had to deal with that kind of BS. This is a game for crying out loud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanders Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 That is absolutely crazy! Many many step to far on the Harassment scale. Any chance in your continued openess here can you tell us all if these people get the ban hammer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaximusRex Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 I hope you reported those who did it to the proper authorities. There are laws about online stalking and harassment, and frankly people who would do those things need to dealt with or they will be emboldened to do more heinous acts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rankyn Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 Good job, people. This is why we can't have nice things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MorgenBlue Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 (edited) It's completely unacceptable for people to do things like that. Maybe in the future though maybe you should post these posts Musco as I think you are more used to taking this flak and have taken the appropriate precautions to deal with it while John has not. This isn't the first time this kind of stuff has happened with Bioware, after Mass Effect 3 came out the hate was absolutely terrible. People are disgusting. While the vast majority of the community aren't going to take it that far there will always be some who will no matter what you do and I ask that you don't punish the community as a whole for the few people that take it that far. You should probably fully expect that to keep happening though because you are dealing with hundreds of thousands of people and out of the whole lot a few are probably nuts. Edited May 7, 2015 by MorgenBlue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JediUmbra Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 My sympathies to John. The behaviour of his attackers is unacceptable and any right minded member of society must voice their objection to it. I hope criminal charges are forthcoming against them. John, and the developers in general, please don't let this incident change what you are doing. That gives these animals a win. Fight it by continuing to do what you know is right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sorei Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 I know it's easy to say from the outside, but that's really low. I didn't follow the Sentinel/Marauder discussion because I rarely play my pure DPS characters, but I was glad to see him responding to the concerns of the healer community. I understand that sometimes people can feel powerless when their favourite classes or skills get changed in a direction they dislike, but the amount of harassment described is both unwarranted and unworthy of any decent human being. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JuggernautReaver Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 While you disagree with us on how the game we pay for plays, that is too far Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
New_Pidgey Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 That's just amazing low. It's just a game, if people are going to take it that seriously, they would be better off unsubscribing to voice their displeasure. I wouldn't blame the devs if they stopped talking to us at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ardarell_Solo Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 I'm shocked and very sad that happened. John, if anything I wrote encouraged people to act this way I apologize to you and your family. This is a border that must never be crossed, this is way out of proportion. I'm ashamed to be even part of a process that lead to something like that. People have totally lost perspective, I can't believe it. This is as stupid game you can't transfer anything here into real life. Attacking people personally is low to begin with, but expanding that to their family is a catarstrophe and plain criminal. I honestly have to reconsider if I want to write antyhing on the topic again. This is a sad day. Again, my heartfelt apologies! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jojomagro Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 You can come talk to us in the Commando/Mercenary thread! We're nice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeyboardNinja Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 There's disagreement, and there's ethics in journalism, and there's this. This is unacceptable. I don't agree with the decisions made recently by the combat team with respect to the sentinel/marauder AC. I don't agree with how they were communicated or the line of thinking that the communication it represents. But none of that matters. This is so far over the line it needs a passport and a visa. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanaMarschz Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 That's a lot of crazy. Sorry some folks don't know where to draw the line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WheresMyWhisky Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 Wow seriously. I am sorry people have done that to him, there is no need for that sort of behaviour ever. Comon peeps vent your spleen on the forums if you have to, I have, but don't start tracking people down and harassing them and their family there is just no need for that's ort of **** Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 Wow...I don't even know what to say... This is just beyond freaky...I hope you were able to take action against those who did this. They're unwelcome here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSitruc Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 this is insanity.. i also hope that these criminals can be tracked down, processed by the authorities and EA/Bioware bans them from all of their games. These kinds of animals can not be accepted in any community. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anishor Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 The members of the community that did this should no longer be members of the community, this is unacceptable behavior of human beings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sudo Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 It's unfortunate some people took to this extreme measure and in no way do I condone it. That being said, maybe you as developers need to look into why this group and this topic ended up going to such extremes. Reading your response about dialogue made my stomach churn just a little, because the posts I'm reading from the combat team are less about actual dialogue and more of a "Learn to Play" or "this is how we want you to play a xxx spec Sent/Mara". Now this isn't to say that dialogue didn't happen on other developer posts, in fact quite the opposite, many were happy about the reversal of "QOL" Heal changes that were actually nerfs. But the tone of the messages from the COMBAT team regarding Sentinels and Marauders is drastically different, bordering on antagonizing. Again, don't hide behind the fact that some groups went to unethical extremes, but to me, this illustrates the frustration level of players who are extremely passionate about a class, and how they are not feeling heard or acknowledged to the point of being antagonized. Developer interaction is increasing, but it is still very spotty at best when it comes to actual dialogue and that's the issue, the lack of one side feeling heard or acknowledged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nepthen Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 I may be snarky in some of my replies and it's obvious that there is huge disagreement between the devs and players regarding the proposed changes to Sentinels/Mara but threatening someone and his/her extended family is unacceptable. This is the new low of the community. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laurreth Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 And once more I'm ashamed to be someone on the internet . I wish those people weren't and in fact I wish they were somehow transported to somewhere like the surface of the sun, or at least the interior of a very small concrete, windowless cell. No idea really what else to say. "Keep up the work and don't go overboard with DPS output?" (Hey, I am mostly playing healers...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JuggernautReaver Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 It's unfortunate some people took to this extreme measure and in no way do I condone it. That being said, maybe you as developers need to look into why this group and this topic ended up going to such extremes. Reading your response about dialogue made my stomach churn just a little, because the posts I'm reading from the combat team are less about actual dialogue and more of a "Learn to Play" or "this is how we want you to play a xxx spec Sent/Mara". Now this isn't to say that dialogue didn't happen on other developer posts, in fact quite the opposite, many were happy about the reversal of "QOL" Heal changes that were actually nerfs. But the tone of the messages from the COMBAT team regarding Sentinels and Marauders is drastically different, bordering on antagonizing. Again, don't hide behind the fact that some groups went to unethical extremes, but to me, this illustrates the frustration level of players who are extremely passionate about a class, and how they are not feeling heard or acknowledged to the point of being antagonized. Developer interaction is increasing, but it is still very spotty at best when it comes to actual dialogue and that's the issue, the lack of one side feeling heard or acknowledged. truth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonNH Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 How embarrassing for the SWTOR community. I hope the ones responsible are caught and given some form of justice, and then John and his family can move on from this nonsense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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