Harassment of Developers

[Laurreth]

Not true, I'm not at all embarrassed because I didn't participate, nor do I think what they did represents this community.

 

I sadly think it represents the scum of many "communities"; that stuff happens too often, and it's a sad reason why it took a long time for these forums to become as open as they are (look at the "rated E" padded cell of a forum Frontier are running for Elite Dangerous where you can get banned for writing "****ed" asterisks and all, compared to that, this place is the dark internet!), and why we still can't do things like post images on the support forums. Remember people going absolutely ape to the point of writing death threats when someone decided that the reload animation for a gun in a CoD game should be 0.1s longer?

 

It's stuff like that which finds attention of mainstream media, and it makes "us" (as in the mythical "we" who "need" stuff so many conjure) all look bad, no matter if we consider ourselves party to whatever happened. It's also stuff like that which makes infringements on basic human rights like wanton data retention for persecuting all kinds of demeanors (think "Patriot Act" or whatever France is just about to pass as law, but available to the common plod) look a lot better, because it would make hitting those dolts over the head with a big aluminium legal cluebat a lot easier. I'd love to see that kind of hitting.

 

It's something that we as humans should be ashamed of, ashamed that people like that are part of the same species.

[StefanInter]

There is common sense and decency and these people have overstepped the line.

 

They need a lifetime account ban at min...

[Telanis]

You don't pay for the developers to give you detailed feedback about their design process on the forums. They aren't required to do this. They can go silent all they want. I trust this is probably not your first MMO if you think that's an expectation, because the norm is the opposite.

 

I didn't say anything about my expectations -- my expectations of BW are completely in the toilet. I said they're not doing us a favor by communicating. They want money and would make more of it by talking to us in a decent manner. That's doing *themselves* a favor.

 

Besides that, though, your argument is specious. Just because most MMO support is garbage doesn't mean that's the way it should be, or that customers don't deserve and can't expect better.

Edited May 7, 2015 by Telanis

[JaceMatai]

It's just *********** crazy that someone would personally track down John and his family members. Unreal.

Also, you say you want to have an open dialogue about changes, but I never see any replies on peoples' opinions. How is this a dialogue?

[azudelphi]

Well, I have seen ppl spending time to brainstorm new ideas. Ppl actually tested things. They were doing it since the closed test of 3.0 And all they get for 6 months is...nothing.

 

And for the sane masses, that means nothing when talking about players or other fringe communities harassing him, his family, or anything in his personal life.

[DanaMarschz]

not victim blaming, he said on the first line that he did not condone what those people did, should probably read instead of selectively read

 

The post still offered justification for an action that was morally wrong. Maybe I read it wrong, but essentially it was saying "I don't support this but it's your fault it happened". To me that equates to victim blaming. At the very least it was in poor taste to even bring up class changes.

[WhiteOsprey]

I'll admit i was part of the mara community that was pissed off yesterday with what happened. I found the posts condescending to say the least, and to hear Eric say things like feedback and open conversation makes my head hurt. We are getting no such thing. That said, there is no excuse whatsoever for people to go after him personally like this, especially his family. Anyone doing this has completely lost perspective, its a video game. Sorry you are having to deal with that John. Edited May 7, 2015 by WhiteOsprey

[Mornyr]

Honestly, I'm surprised it took so long for a post like this to come up. Maybe I'm just naive but what I've been seeing from the devs ever since the closed PTS for 3.0 was an honest and genuine effort to understand the wants and needs of the players, to get feedback so they can iterate on their ideas and implementation, and at the end of the day make SWTOR a better game for us, the players. And almost all they've been getting in return are a bunch of spoiled brats yelling at their parents for getting them the wrong toy for Christmas. I'm sorry it had to get to the point of harassment before the devs started putting the trolls in their place.

[Trimexxx]

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.

 

This.

[Dewlmenow]

Let me say up front that I absolutely do not condone the actions taken by members of the community as far as harassment of John or his family goes. Such actions are unacceptable, and those who participated in such harassment should be appropriately punished.

 

That being said Eric, I understand the frustration which may have led those members of the community to this extreme. That doesn't make it right, but a refusal to understand what led to those actions leave us only doomed to suffer them again in the future.

 

Frankly Eric the only part of your post that I agree with is that such actions are absolutely unacceptable. Everything else is utter crap. The combat team wasn't interested in a dialog. A dialog would be them talking to us. Those idiotic posts yesterday were John talking at the community, not to it. And they varied between being condescending "learn to play" nonsense and flat out untruths. Whether those untruths were a result of willful lying or incompetence is irrelevant. Holding an opinion the community doesn't like is one thing. Showing the kind of disrespect John showed yesterday while failing to meaningfully address any of the actual concerns of the Mara/Sent community is another matter entirely. If the alternative to no communication is lying or incompetence mixed with a healthy dose of disrespect then, speaking purely for myself, I'm not sure which I find more infuriating but neither is acceptable from you or the combat team. Either way I cannot bring myself to respect the opinions of the Combat team when they so clearly don't respect those of the community.

 

Again, does that mean that those who allowed their frustration and anger to manifest in the harassment suffered by John and his family was justified? No it absolutely does not. There was no justification for that. Yet if the way Bioware communicates with the playerbase continues in the same vein that John gave yesterday then the absolute best case scenario is that the game closes down because everyone quit, and the worst case scenario is that more and more people give into their anger in ways that are out of bounds. Neither of those I think are what the devs want. Certainly neither of those are what I want. Yet the community is powerless to affect real change without the team and Bioware doing things from their end to engage in actual meaningful dialog about class balance, and sadly there will always be people who, when they feel powerless, will go outside the bounds of civil behavior in order to try and stop being powerless.

 

 

Official channels will only ever be effective outlets for Player criticism, badly as it's often expressed, when those channels are seen to be effective. When you have PTS after PTS cycle where meaningful feedback is ignored, when you make posts like the three posted yesterday, many people will stop seeing those official channels as having any relevance. Some like myself will stop posting for the most part because we're frustrated and angry and don't see the point in trying to engage the development team any further. Others, unfortunately, will allow their frustration and anger to lead them more unfortunate, and frankly reprehensible actions.

 

So were the actions of yesterday justified? No. Were they despicable? Absolutely yes. Were they predictable? Sadly yes. As soon as I saw them, the internet being the internet and people being people I expected something like this to happen. Could it have all been avoided if communication had been handled better? Yes it could have.

 

This. John has my sympathies and what happened was totally over the line. But essentially neutering a spec for the past 6 months, putting in changes that will literally kill a spec, and then telling all the players to l2play is going to get heated reactions. As a community, SWTOR has had issues with displaying personal information of other players, and after just about the worst possible handling of Dev communication I've seen in this game yesterday, I expected something poor to happen. I do wish that none of this had happened, and it was all way beyond the realm of going too far, but the internet has a lot of people that will go way too far.

 

Ps. Anybody blaming the sentinel/marauder community as a whole is an idiot, and should focus on the couple of trolls that deserve to be reported to the authorities.

[Muzyka]

Hi Eric,

 

Speaking on behalf of myself, and my guild-mates here, and for what it's worth:

 

We absolutely and utterly condemn this kind of personal attack on an employee (and his family!) and we implore you not to allow the actions of the few prevent you from continuing to try and improve the channels of communication between yourselves, and us, those players who continue to support, play, and pay for, this game.

 

To the community at large:

 

John was simply trying to do what he thought was best, and communicate openly with us in an attempt to try and explain what we all know to be a controversial series of changes that affect a class in a way that many of us disagree with.

 

For a long time we have been screaming out for this kind of communication / explanation of such changes, and asking for exactly this. And this is his thanks?

 

Sure, we might not always agree with the decisions made by the developers, or the way information is somtimes communicated with us and, at times, the way it feels like our feedback is simply ignored (a topic for another post)...

 

But that doesn't excuse or justify what John and his family had to endure. I for one would fully support BW/EA or John and his Family, if they chose to identify you, terminate your accounts, and report you to the police / authorities and chose to pursue legal action where appropriate.

 

You should be f***ing ashamed of yourselves. I know I am.

 

- Muzyka

[Arlon_Nabarlly]

I hope everyone blaming the victim here get's a suspension or worse. That behavior should not be tolerated, especially right after this event.

[znihilist]

This. John has my sympathies and what happened was totally over the line. But [...]

 

No no no no, there is no but. Please for the sake of everything that is good don't go there. He could tell us we are idiots, he could tell us that from tomorrow we are all nerfed down to level 10-damage, he could literally say that we need to git gud, and it still wouldn't necessitate any reaction beyond this forum.

 

There is no "but" there is the first sentence and it ends there.

[TheJollyRogers]

Jesus. All these people actually saying that the tone of the post was responsible for the harassment, and cowardly prefacing it with "Oh, yeah, I totally don't condone it, but *insert reasoning about why the post should be responsible.*

 

I don't care your spec was gutted in 3.0.

 

I don't care about the post's tone.

 

I don't care about how little the changes help your class or not.

 

He and his family got harassed. Over a post. And all you care about is that bloody post. What kind of human being are you? Are you really that blind that the state of your class in a video game is more important than the well-being of the people who are making the game? Get a grip, guys. Get a damn grip.

Edited May 7, 2015 by TheJollyRogers

[jedip_enguin]

This is why we cant have nice things.

[cs_zoltan]

Not cool, don't be part of the problem by perpetuating the thing you abhor.

 

Well he obviously thinks it's not an awful thing, and people deserve it when they fail short in their job...

 

 

Anyway I didn't actually mean it, just like John's family didn't deserve it, neither does his.

Edited May 7, 2015 by cs_zoltan

[Dewlmenow]

No no no no, there is no but. Please for the sake of everything that is good don't go there. He could tell us we are idiots, he could tell us that from tomorrow we are all nerfed down to level 10-damage, he could literally say that we need to git gud, and it still wouldn't necessitate any reaction beyond this forum.

 

There is no "but" there is the first sentence and it ends there.

 

If you read my post fully, I in no way condoned anything beyond a complaining in the forums/unsubbing. Whichever scum did that should be prosecuted IMO. I was just saying lots of people were pissed off, and people pissed off on the internet take things too far.

[Dewlmenow]

Never mind Edited May 7, 2015 by Dewlmenow

[Miyi]

So horrible. That person is a special kind of crazy.

[NeoIshamael]

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

 

Seriously? To the dip-***** who did this ....I cannot even begin to fathom how uninteresting you must be to go to these lengths. I find no enjoyment anymore from SWTOR and I think the game is poorly managed. However, I would never go so far as to seek out a developer who LOVES this game as much or more than I do and harass him. Whoever did this, I feel sorry for you.

[HKtheindomitable]

Statement: And this, if anyone has seen them, is why I attempted to get folks to see why their rude conduct here is wrong.

 

Fact: Treating the developer team like dirt and then harassing them does no good. They are less inclined to do a good job and will listen to players less and less because you're being rude.

 

Query: Do you listen to someone that is rudely telling you how to do your job, or rudely giving suggestions? How likely are you going to willingly do your job or what they ask/suggest? Do rude meatbags make your job more enjoyable, or do they make you want to not go to work because you know you'll have to deal with them? What makes the developers for SWTOR any different from you?

 

Recognition: Yes, the combat team should do better with how they do things and their ideas on how things work. Yes they should be less inclined to have things work the way they want it to. Yes they should do better overall.

 

Reminder: But they have to draw the lines somewhere and stop listening to the players because if they didn't, this game would be utter chaos. Choosing where that line is, however, can be tricky.

 

Fact: But it is in no way any reason to ever be rude, even less to harass. Acting like that just makes their job less enjoyable. There is never a reason to harass someone, let alone to be rude. There is a difference between disagreeing and being rude.

 

Comparison: Disagreeing is saying "I don't like what's happening. I would rather such and such was this way." Being rude is saying "You bleeping bleeps don't know what your doing. I'm quitting until you bleeps get it. Bleep you! Bleep this game. I'm out." Harassing is even lower.

 

Informative: Another note is that this is a forum. All forums have rules. Some forums have extra rules set by the host. A forum is a place for mature discussion. Not cruelty and rudeness. If you want to act like a five year old, go to facebook, twitter, youtube, etc. where it's expected. Forums are for beings that act like adults.

 

Observation: The needlessly rude attitude of many users are why those that are actually enjoying the game and are mature almost never post on these forums, if they do at all. Your negativity is killing the community.

 

Fact: It's not all about "ME". It's about having fun and enjoying something that we love together.

 

Reasoning Query: Are those that aren't a part of that toxic meatbag crowd going to really blame BioWare if they stop communicating with us? Is it their fault?

 

Reasoning Statement: No it is not. It is the fault of the extremely toxic users that are being needlessly rude here. If they stop communicating with us then it's time to go after those for being fools. We will have to suffer because of the fools. Do not blame BioWare. We can't have nice things if meatbags don't get it through their thick meaty heads that being rude does not get things done faster, things don't happen overnight, things rarely go your way, and the more you are rude, the longer things take to happen, the lower the quality, and the more likely we will all see the end of this game very very soon.

 

Opinion: I'd rather see BioWare go after those accounts and have them suspended or banned. They deserve it for acting stupid.

 

Fact: Doing so isn't an infringement on their rights. The first amendment only says the government can't shut you up ("prohibits the making of any law"). It doesn't mean you can't be shut up by anybody if you're being a total jerk face. Last I checked BioWare isn't the government. And since these users are clearly harassing workers of a company, BioWare has every right to remove their accounts, maybe even take legal action.

 

Recitation: Yes you are entitled to your opinion and are allowed to voice it. But if you're going to be rude about it, you deserve what you get and others are going to be disinclined to agree, and even less to listen.

[Costello]

That people insulted, harassed or threatened someone or their family is wrong.

 

In no way condoning that the situation with the mara/sents could have been handled so much better. A post that basically told the annihilation players to learn to play and when this was raised as insulting no clarification post was made.

 

Speaking of dialogue is also a little misleading, it suggests a conversation between two or more people. What has been received by the players is a monologue in which first the mara/sent community were told their poor performance in ranked PvP was an illusion and the metrics said that they won most of their games. This was refuted by the players and so another post went up saying the players were wrong.

 

Then changes are made which don't appear to address the problem on the PTS and 60 pages are posted on how this doesn't work. There is no reply to these and then 3 posts are made. All which basically told the players you feed back was worthless we are doing things how we want and you need to learn to play. For all the good it does the dialogue could as easily have been the patch notes for the amount of two way communication that is happening.

 

While a serious lack of judgement was exercised its surprising that players feel that connected to the game to go to these lengths for the vast majority of people its not fun any more and quit. Between playing a class thats not fun and stalking someone I can think of better ways to spend my time.

[Twortas]

Jesus. All these people actually saying that the tone of the post was responsible for the harassment, and cowardly prefacing it with "Oh, yeah, I totally don't condone it, but *insert reasoning about why the post should be responsible.*

 

I don't care your spec was gutted in 3.0.

 

I don't care about the post's tone.

 

I don't care about how little the changes help your class or not.

 

He and his family got harassed. Over a post. And all you care about is that bloody post. What kind of human being are you? Are you really that blind that the state of your class in a video game is more important than the well-being of the people who are making the game? Get a grip, guys. Get a damn grip.

 

/thread won.

[Syrlex]

If ever there was a reason to perma-ban people from this game, the disgraceful conduct described in the OP is a perfect valid one in my opinion. Such behaviour can never be considered acceptable.

 

And while it can/should never be considered bannable, victim-blaming is also unacceptable. Air your grievances respectfully and responsibly. The lack of constructive, two-way dialog is not going to be rectified by people behaving badly.

Edited May 7, 2015 by Syrlex

[TitusOfTides]

The purpose... is to have a dialog.

 

I mean no offense by this, but how is one-way communication with us once in a blue moon a dialogue? Especially when you have an entire community desperately trying to get developer feedback on literally every single board of these forums.

 

I understand where you are coming from, and what happened yesterday sounds totally unacceptable. However, it doesn't seem appropriate to label your scarce forum posts as "dialog."

Edited May 7, 2015 by TitusOfTides