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Rules of Engagement, Lesson #1 -- Say Nothing
August 10th 2000, 03:55 CEST by andy Diablo II and The Patch That People Hate. What's going on? You want to be kept informed, I know you do. You've got questions that you want to ask, and baby you know I want to get those answers for you! And I nearly managed it too... But you see, Blizzard is one of those game companies that still insists on locking its developers away in a dark room and putting a load of PR people out front to defend them against the perceived evils of journalism. And so, it is my sad news to report that despite the best efforts of your friends at the Planet o' Crap, we've been defeated by the lovely Ms Debra Osborne of Havas Interactive, Blizzard's parent company. For the curious, it went like this...
And that, my friends, is where the curtain closes. Apparently the questions were passed on to the QA team as promised, answered, handed back to Debra, and then, for some unexplained reason, she was asked not to send them to me yet. Will she send them? Did she ever intend to send them? Were they ever answered? Did she even pass them on to the QA team in the first place? Believe whatever makes you happy, folks! |
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Topic: Rules of Engagement, Lesson #1 -- Say Nothing
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<quote>Will she send them? Did she ever intend to send them? Were they ever answered? Did she even pass them on to the QA team in the first place?</quote> I can honestly tell you that you're lucky to even get that far Andy. Blizzard's PR people are among the busiest people in the world. It took me like a month to arrange a visit down to blizzard; it's not like they're blowing you off, just that the ball rolls really slowly when it's made out of the stuff of suns. [translation - blizzard is a big f'in company with a lot of red tape.] |
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<b>#13</b>, Steve Bauman: <QUOTE> Oh, and just as an aside, Debra Osborne is not Blizzard's regular PR person (though she may be an assistant). Susan Wooley usually handles all Blizzard media requests, but she's out on maternity leave. </QUOTE> Yep, I got Debra's address from Susan's autoresponder. You may well be right about the other stuff. But the way I see it, I asked Blizzard about the issues that are being raised by Diablo II players, and so far Blizzard hasn't done anything to address those concerns. <i>Why</i> they haven't done anything probably isn't of much concern to the players, and thus it isn't of much concern to me either. |
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<b>#6</b> "George Broussard" wrote... <QUOTE> God I hate PR people almost as much as marketing weenies. </QUOTE> I usually have more luck going through PR people than getting some developers to answer questions or do much of anything; screenshot requests will go unanswered for days (hey, my deadlines are real; we can't publish a magazine "when it's done", heh heh), e-mails go unanswered... you get a PR person to crack the whip and stuff gets done. A lot of developers don't seem to know our publication (which is probably our fault), but the PR people do. I have to say, though, that you and Scott at 3D Realms are by far the most approachable folks in the industry, and have always quickly answered any and all questions. --- "My life is a patio of fun."<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>Steve Bauman</b> (#14): <QUOTE>Um, they cared enough to create a pretty good game that people seem to like. Beyond that, they don't really need to do anything; they choose to. They tried to address what appeared (to them, and others I've spoken with) an imbalance in the game. And maybe they screwed up. But to say they don't care for the community is absurd. Maybe they could have handled things differently, but who's ever had a perfect public record? They're playing on a HUGE stage right now, and they're stumbling a bit... </QUOTE> Well first, I am going to say this. Diablo 2 is a heart stab to the RPG genre. Diablo 2, is not really nothing new, just new classes. I played it, went to act 4, and uninstalled it. The wilderness, the character system, all bad. It was pretty damn good at first, because you wanted to see whats new, but repeative monsters, and very predictable (probably nt spelled right) storyline, made me want to free up 1.5 GB. I admit that Blizzard is a good company, but a lot of people bought into the hype, and now they are screwing things up and being rude (shown here by andy). Diablo 2 is like a whore, once you play a lot, it gets old fast. <I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>ilian</b> (#15): <QUOTE>Blizzard patching diablo and making it a BETTER game and showing that they are dedicated to their player base as a whole </QUOTE> If it didn't sell well, they wouldn't support. Example is Blood 2. Thats how the market works, if it doesn't sell, the game doesn't get support. We seen this practiced numerous times <I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#17</b> "Andy" wrote... <QUOTE> You may well be right about the other stuff. But the way I see it, I asked Blizzard about the issues that are being raised by Diablo II players, and so far Blizzard hasn't done anything to address those concerns. <I>Why</I> they haven't done anything probably isn't of much concern to the players, and thus it isn't of much concern to me either. </QUOTE> I agree, but not all questions can be answered in an hour, or in a day. But With the Internet, we expect everything RIGHT NOW. And when it doesn't (hey, maybe the person was on vacation for a day, or called in sick), we suspect ulterior motives. And with anything as high-profile as Diablo II, you can guarantee that there's a process for all outbound media statements. Two days may seem like an eternity (though it doesn't to me; sheesh, if you're unhappy don't play the game until they address the problem...), but c'mon... we have NO idea how many media requests they're receiving right now. And by the way, my phone call to Blizzard from a week ago hasn't been returned. (My call had nothing to do with this issue.) Once this has blown over, I'll call back. Amazing! --- "My life is a patio of fun."<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<quote>I have to say, though, that you and Scott at 3D Realms are by far the most approachable folks in the industry, and have always quickly answered any and all questions. </quote> Do I smell a Computer Games Magazine exclusive for DNF? ;) |
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<b>#19</b> "BloodKnight" wrote... <QUOTE> Well first, I am going to say this. Diablo 2 is a heart stab to the RPG genre. Diablo 2, is not really nothing new, just new classes. I played it, went to act 4, and uninstalled it. The wilderness, the character system, all bad. It was pretty damn good at first, because you wanted to see whats new, but repeative monsters, and very predictable (probably nt spelled right) storyline, made me want to free up 1.5 GB. I admit that Blizzard is a good company, but a lot of people bought into the hype, and now they are screwing things up and being rude (shown here by andy). Diablo 2 is like a whore, once you play a lot, it gets old fast. </QUOTE> OK, but so what? You don't like the game. So why are you upset about the patch if you uninstalled the game? And I don't consider this behavior being rude. Being rude would be, "I'm sorry, but Planetcrap doesn't have the sort of numbers we consider worth our time to answer your questions." If you notice, no one is getting answers; I'm guessing they're readying an official statement. Just be patient, people. Sheesh. Andy, when did you send your questions? I mean, we're talking about two days without the questions answered, right? --- "My life is a patio of fun."<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#22</b> "Apache" wrote... <QUOTE> Do I smell a Computer Games Magazine exclusive for DNF? ;) </QUOTE> Hey now! But now that you mention it... But it's true; whenever I do an industry article, I always e-mail Scott Miller and he always answers my questions promptly (and usually with some great quotes). --- "My life is a patio of fun."<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#21</b>, Steve Bauman: <QUOTE> I agree, but not all questions can be answered in an hour, or in a day. </QUOTE> She says they've already been answered -- that's what is weird. <b>#23</b>, Steve Bauman: <QUOTE> Andy, when did you send your questions? I mean, we're talking about two days without the questions answered, right? </QUOTE> Something like that. A little more than two days, my time, but I'm not sure if Debra would have been in the office at the time I sent them. |
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<b>Steve Bauman</b> (#23): <QUOTE>And I don't consider this behavior being rude. Being rude would be, "I'm sorry, but Planetcrap doesn't have the sort of numbers we consider worth our time to answer your questions." If you notice, no one is getting answers; I'm guessing they're readying an official statement. Just be patient, people. Sheesh. </QUOTE> Well asking for your name again, if you are some how famous and own a popular site, is a bit rude. Thats like saying to Bill Gates "You are again? What did you want?" But they might be making an official statement, who knows. I think Blizzard has its own head into its ass this time, making a patch that lowers skills that players put a month of work to put on, and also battle.net being all screwed up. Also hacked characters, which I shocked they haven't fixed yet. Oh and the reason why I am pissed off about a patch is because of the developers (Blizzard) are biting the hands off that feed them (community) If right now ID software decided to make the rocket launcher have lower damage, would you think the Q3A community be pissed off right now? <I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#26</b> "BloodKnight" wrote... <QUOTE> If right now ID software decided to make the rocket launcher have lower damage, would you think the Q3A community be pissed off right now? </QUOTE> Sure, then they'd get over it and move on with their lives. Maybe they'd even learn to play the game differently, which would add value to the game because it would make it feel new. --- "My life is a patio of fun."<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>Steve Bauman</b> (#27): <QUOTE>Sure, then they'd get over it and move on with their lives. Maybe they'd even learn to play the game differently, which would add value to the game because it would make it feel new. </QUOTE> This is like changing the rules in soccer, where you have to 2 goals to get a point. Its 'weaker', more pain the ass, and doesn't enhance the fun in a 'sport' <I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#25</b> "Andy" wrote... <QUOTE> She says they've already been answered -- that's what is weird. </quote> Which says to me they're waiting for the official statement before going public with anything. Which I think is smart; rather than answer hundreds of individual questions, they can incorporate them all into a single statement. And that decision may have been made after she said they were answered. <quote>Something like that. A little more than two days, my time, but I'm not sure if Debra would have been in the office at the time I sent them. </QUOTE> Well, it often takes a lot longer than two days to get questions answered. --- "My life is a patio of fun."<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#28</b> "BloodKnight" wrote... <QUOTE> This is like changing the rules in soccer, where you have to 2 goals to get a point. Its 'weaker', more pain the ass, and doesn't enhance the fun in a 'sport' </QUOTE> Um, hmm, your example would affect every player. This patch, as I understand it, does not. And there are plenty of people that disagree with you (like the people in our office). It's just they're not screaming as loudly as those "wronged" by the changed. --- "My life is a patio of fun."<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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I gotta agree with Steve here. If someone at a large company gets back to you in two days, you're in heaven. I cover health care for the paper I work for, talking to hospitals, HMOs and doctors all day and if they call me back more than two hours before deadline, I'm giddy. Ironically (or perhaps not so ironically), HMO and hospital executives are usually more accessible than doctors because the PR people are there telling them, "Yes, you have to talk to the press." Of course, doctors also can't talke becasue they are busy as hell, but that's another story entirely. I've liked most of the PR folks I met. Most simply help me hook up with the right person to get the info I need. |
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<b>Steve Bauman</b> (#30): <QUOTE>Um, hmm, your example would affect every player. This patch, as I understand it, does not. </QUOTE> Ummm..use your head, skills are lowered, therefore, weaker! Where does skill apply? To a character in diablo. Who controls the character? The player. What happened to the skills? They have been weaker then before, and this affects every character/player that worked their asses off. People wouldn't be complaining if this didn't 'affect every player' <I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't #12 be a contradiction? A company has to make money, so it's understandable that profits are the highest priority. But if profits are the highest priority, caring for your customers has to be the 2nd priority, pissing them off wouldn't be very good for business. |
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<b>Show Time</b> (#33): <QUOTE>pissing them off wouldn't be very good for business</QUOTE> I let the patch and the blizzard forums speak for themselves <I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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Damn time to sleep, there will be probably over 50 or 100 posts when I wake up <I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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i have an old Diablo action figure i bought for $2.99 on clearance at EB. Was i a Diablo fan? nope, but the lil' Knight guy looked pretty cool, and i figured he'd make a good addition to the mass of crap above my computer. Is he still there? nope, he's been replaced by a Major Maxim figure and now sits atop a mass of boxes on another bookshelf. i bought Diablo 2 for $39.95 at the same EB. Was i a Diablo fan? nope, but i figured i'd install it and it would provide some vague sense of entertainment for a while. Is it still there? nope...two sets of reference drivers, a few blue screens and a re-format later, and it's gone from my HD. the little Knight provides a fitting guardian to the 'dead elephant graveyard' of PC games he stands atop... ^M^ |
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<b>#32</b> "BloodKnight" wrote... <QUOTE> Ummm..use your head, skills are lowered, therefore, weaker! Where does skill apply? To a character in diablo. Who controls the character? The player. What happened to the skills? They have been weaker then before, and this affects every character/player that worked their asses off. People wouldn't be complaining if this didn't 'affect every player' </QUOTE> I'm not a big Diablo player, but I was under the impression that the lowered skills only affected certain characters in the game, hence only players using those characters are affected. And if you really think everyone is pissed off... well, it's a certain number of extremely vocal people. If they've sold a million copies of the game, it ain't a million people. It's probably not even 100,000 people. It may not even be 10,000 people. What is it, 10%? 1%? .1%? --- "My life is a patio of fun."<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#30</b> "Steve Bauman" wrote... <QUOTE>Um, hmm, your example would affect every player. This patch, as I understand it, does not. </QUOTE> Sports league constantly change rules to stop unbalanced or unfair play. Here's a few off the top of my head for American football. 1) In the final two minutes of a half, a team may not gain yardage after regaining their own fumble--The Stabler rule who fumbled into the end zone where his teammate recovered for a game winning touchdown. 2) They instituted some rules on the no-huddle offense. Seems a team was tearing up its opponents by just running it constantly. You can still do it, but the officials can call a halt to it under certain conditions. 3) Instant Reply rules. They're still experimenting with it, I think each team is now given a handful of challenges, which they can use as they see fit. If they blow them all early in the game, it can come back to haunt them later on. So, it happens in the real world, so get over yourself :) I... AM BAYTOR!!!!<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#37</b>, Steve Bauman: <QUOTE> And if you really think everyone is pissed off... well, it's a certain number of extremely vocal people. If they've sold a million copies of the game, it ain't a million people. It's probably not even 100,000 people. It may not even be 10,000 people. What is it, 10%? 1%? .1%? </QUOTE> Ah, now hang on a minute ya crafty scamp! ;-) You can't judge public opinion based on the size of a survey. You have to judge it based on the responses <i>within</i> that survey. That's still not a very scientific way of doing it, but it's better. Let's set out some <b>hypothetical</b> figures: There are a million Diablo II players. On the web, 1,000 of those players are complaining about the latest patch. You're using those figures to conclude that 0.1% of Diablo II are annoyed, and therefore 99.9% don't care. You should actually look at this way, again hypothetically: There are a million Diablo II players. There are 10,000 of them who regularly use the web, posting to message boards etc. 1,000 of them are complaining. Therefore, you can conclude that 10% of players who use the web do care, and 90% don't. You can't make any assumption about what the other 990,000 players think. -- There was a good example of this kind of statistical distortion recently, after the murder of a young girl here in the UK. A newspaper, the News Of The World, ran a very emotive campaign to reveal the names and locations of known paedophiles. Then they ran an opinion poll, asking their readers to vote on whether a register of paedophiles should be available to the public. 97% of people who took part in the poll said yes. The paper claimed that this meant 97% of the British public wanted the law to be changed. HUGELY inaccurate! The only accurate conclusion they could draw is that 97% of NOTW readers who took part in the poll wanted the law to be changed, and 3% didn't. The readers of a particular newspaper will generally be a distinct subset of society, so to claim that a newspaper poll is indicative of national feeling is wrong. |
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<b>Steve Bauman</b> (#18): <QUOTE>I have to say, though, that you and Scott at 3D Realms are by far the most approachable folks in the industry, and have always quickly answered any and all questions. </QUOTE> Well, in all honesty, it doesn't take all that long to type, "No comment". ;) -- Warren Marshall - Professional Nuisance<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#39</b> "Andy" wrote... <QUOTE> You're using those figures to conclude that 0.1% of Diablo II are annoyed, and therefore 99.9% don't care. </quote> Or they don't care enough to rant on a message board. But message board traffic is usually dominated by a handful of posters to write most of the messages and tend to distort the message or make it appear there is consensus when there is none. --- "My life is a patio of fun."<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#41</b>, Steve Bauman: <QUOTE> Or they don't care enough to rant on a message board. </QUOTE> Or they don't know about the board in the first place. |
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I read about 20 posts and I'm just jumping down here and I'm gonna say something about PR dudes. Why do you all dislike them so much? I talk to Dan Miller at Lith all the time, and he's a really cool guy. I asked him for screenshots for a very small website, and he said he will probably send a few over. And this is when he has just come back from a vacation, with 200+ emails to answer and over a week to catch up on. Developers is understandably different. When you're working 12+ hours a day so that you can get a game out on time, I don't think that screenshot requests, or e-mail in general is very high on their priority list when they've got to get a game out. So, cut the developers and Dan Miller (if not any other PR guys) some slack.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#42</b> "Andy" wrote... <QUOTE> Or they don't know about the board in the first place. </QUOTE> Or they don't even notice the changes because they're not that hardcore. --- "My life is a patio of fun."<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>Steve Bauman wrote in post #44:</b> <quote>Or they don't even notice the changes because they're not that hardcore. </quote> And if you ask me, that's the majority. -- Dethstryk Damage Gaming |
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ATTENTION! - if you like cliffyb go vote here http://www.somethingawful.com/jeffk/fpssurvivar/index.htm so he wins! remember click cliffybs name and then click the vote button or cliffyb will loose. |
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Sorry to say, but those changes Blizzard made were well-founded and 100% justified. As a paladin, it pisses me off to see the barbarian so over-balanced with the whirlwind attack; it's <b>much</b> stronger than my 'zeal' ability. Not to mention the barbarian can wield duel weapons, including two handed weapons in each hand. To quote one of my favorite movies "Your days of finger-banging Mary-Jane Rotten Crotch through her purty pink panties are over!" If you don't like it, leave it. |
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<b>#47</b> "Apache" wrote... <QUOTE>To quote one of my favorite movies "Your days of finger-banging Mary-Jane Rotten Crotch through her purty pink panties are over!" </QUOTE> I've heard that but I can't remember the film, was it in Home Alone?<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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#47 they ruined my necromancer im suing for mental distrrbance and time wasting and mental damage and theyve ruined my life. |
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<b>#47</b>, Apache: But surely Blizzard should at least <b>engage</b> their customers? Blizzard have done something that has made many people feel unhappy, annoyed, and downright betrayed, and so far the only thing they've done is stick some poor PR woman out front to say "<i>move along please, nothing to see here</i>". They should say something. Soon. It's the right thing to do. |
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<quote>I've heard that but I can't remember the film, was it in Home Alone? </quote> Damn you Hulka! It's "Full Metal Jacket"! |
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<b>#50</b> "Andy" wrote... <QUOTE> They should say something. Soon. It's the right thing to do. </QUOTE> Absolutely, but people are crucifying them for not saying it RIGHT NOW. It's amazing how impatient we've become as a society over the past few years... even in the other topic, you sent a message to Fox and TWO WHOLE DAYS have passed without a response. Wow. And to think I'm used to having responses measured in weeks... --- "My life is a patio of fun."<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#52</b>, Steve Bauman: <QUOTE> <B><A href="spy-internal:Load/126#50">#50</A></B> "Andy" wrote... Absolutely, but people are crucifying them for not saying it RIGHT NOW. </QUOTE> Well, it *has* been nearly a week now, hasn't it? Since the patch came out and the fuss started, I mean. <QUOTE> It's amazing how impatient we've become as a society over the past few years... even in the other topic, you sent a message to Fox and TWO WHOLE DAYS have passed without a response. Wow. And to think I'm used to having responses measured in weeks... </QUOTE> In this case, I don't think it's a society thing, so much. I'm just used to getting responses quickly. I don't think I've ever had to wait more than 24 hours for a legitimate (IMO) response from any company, and when I do get a response after that time, it's always a no comment. So nowadays I (usually) give them 48 hours, which I think is reasonable. Are you suggesting I wait one, two, three weeks for a response? Okay, maybe that's your opinion, but guess what -- that's the end of PlanetCrap and 90% of other gaming sites, because (cliché time!) there's no such thing as a fortnight in the news. (Could you hear Tea Leone saying that? Well <i>could you?!</i>) |
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<quote>Sorry to say, but those changes Blizzard made were well-founded and 100% justified. As a paladin, it pisses me off to see the barbarian so over-balanced with the whirlwind attack; it's much stronger than my 'zeal' ability. Not to mention the barbarian can wield duel weapons, including two handed weapons in each hand.</quote> They are makign the same dumbassed mistakes Verant did though, and I know they played Everquest so I can't fathom how they didn't learn from Verant's mistakes. People don't want to feel *weaker* even if it is in the best interest of the game. We as game players want to feel stronger. It's our goal to get stronger. When you take something away you really piss off game players (this is something that most single player games get right just out of habit). If you messed up in your design and someone is too strong, raise up the abilities of the weaker classes to compensate. Nobody is going to complain if they are given a benefit except maybe that Barbarian who can't out kill a Paladin anymore. And if someone complains like that they are going to be shut down quickly by almost everybody for being an idiot. It's a problem I see in deathmatch games as well. The developer sees that their ultra fun to use, but slightly over powering mega weapon is all people use. Instead of figuring out how to make the other weapons more fun to use, they instead opt for the knee jerk reaction of making the ultra weapon weaker and thus far less fun to use. It *really* frustrates me to see developers make the mistake of taking away from their audience. It is their fault the corpse explosion and whirlwhind skills were too strong, not the players and the player should not be punished. The players who are playing the underpowered classes should instead be rewarded by being raised up a notch. Now, will it make it that much easier for those people to play the game? Sure, but it was already that easy for the barbarian and it isn't that big of an issue, so don't worry about it. At the very worst the company can simply up the difficulty of the monsters just an itty bitty fraction. It's insulting that the players are punished for Blizzard's mistakes. Charlie Wiederhold |
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Egads. I'm really out of practice with my typing skills. |
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<b>Charlie Wiederhold</b> (#54): <QUOTE>They are makign the same dumbassed mistakes Verant did though, and I know they played Everquest so I can't fathom how they didn't learn from Verant's mistakes. People don't want to feel *weaker* even if it is in the best interest of the game. We as game players want to feel stronger. It's our goal to get stronger. When you take something away you really piss off game players (this is something that most single player games get right just out of habit). </QUOTE> Wow. That was really well said Charlie. I never thought of it that way before ... why take away from some people ... give to everyone else. That way you get to rebalance the game, and everyone is happy. Like you said, who would bitch about getting MORE strength? Neat ... (no that's not sarcastic, I'm serious dammit! :) -- Warren Marshall - Professional Nuisance<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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Post <b>#25</b> by Andy: <QUOTE><i> She says they've already been answered -- that's what is weird. </i></QUOTE> She probably asked her boss if it's OK to send some info to Andy, after she got the answers... And he said "THAT Andy? From PC? Are you out of your mind? No way. Pretend we are all dead." Just for the record, Blizzard never answered my emails about some technical things in D2. I'm not surprised much but other companies, like id, usually respond within a week. I understand they get million pieces of hate/love mail now each day, but could not they filter out everything which contains "YOU SUCK" and "I LOVE"? This would leave them with reasonable sub-hundred emails per day, imho. Or hire a dedicated mail reading/forwarding person.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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Post <b>#56</b> by Warren Marshall: <QUOTE><i> Wow. That was really well said Charlie. I never thought of it that way before ... why take away from some people ... give to everyone else. That way you get to rebalance the game, and everyone is happy. Like you said, who would bitch about getting MORE strength? Neat ... </i></QUOTE> See, Blizzard said back in Diablo2 pre-release days "it would be possible to go past level 50 but it would be very, very hard". They had this vision, that past level 50 it would take players months and months to go up. So their ladder would not max out for few years before Baal1 or Diablo3. Seeing as they screwed up and everyone who wants to rush for experience is at level 80+, I doubt they would want to raise other classes in power. They are doing what looks like quick hacks to cut the experience gain for powerfull/high level characters. I think when people would start reaching level 90+ in a month or two they would release another "balancing patch", with even more ridiculous experience cuts. Obviously, the skills which allow to kill monsters in hell/hell would have to be weakened too. If they would remove the character level cap, and if they would be releasing addons with more powerfull monsters periodically (Mlvl 100+), then they would be able to balance the game by raising other classes to normal level. Instead they are doing an addon which would have two more character classes. They decided to rebalance classes already, how much worse would it be with addition of another 2?<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<QUOTE> Andy, when did you send your questions? I mean, we're talking about two days without the questions answered, right? Something like that. A little more than two days, my time, but I'm not sure if Debra would have been in the office at the time I sent them. </QUOTE> I was in contact with Blizzard about this and that before the game was released, and two days for a response was the norm. I'd guess three or four days might be the norm now, especially with Susan Wooley out with a baby now. |
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<QUOTE> Just for the record, Blizzard never answered my emails about some technical things in D2. I'm not surprised much but other companies, like id, usually respond within a week. I understand they get million pieces of hate/love mail now each day, but could not they filter out everything which contains "YOU SUCK" and "I LOVE"? This would leave them with reasonable sub-hundred emails per day, imho. Or hire a dedicated mail reading/forwarding person. </QUOTE> Take a look at the volume their bnet boards do each day, and then multiply that by the number of people too shy to post on a board and the number of people with specific, detailed questions. I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard is getting 10,000 emails a day. Heck, if 5% of the installed base is emailing, that might be 50,000 email a day. |
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Of course Blizzard had to tone down the necro and barbarian. <A HREF="http://www.voodooextreme.com/apache/shots/blah/top.jpg">Barbarians and Necros comprise the top 28 players in the world on battle.net</a> Are people who play barbarians and necros simply 'better'? Is this some freak coincidence? Ummm, no? |
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<quote>See, Blizzard said back in Diablo2 pre-release days "it would be possible to go past level 50 but it would be very, very hard". They had this vision, that past level 50 it would take players months and months to go up. So their ladder would not max out for few years before Baal1 or Diablo3.</quote> Actually, that is part of the problem that both Everquest and a lot of muds suffer from. The creator has a vision of how they want their players to play, and how long it should take them to do something. That's is their worst mistake. No matter what you want, your vision of how to play the game is not how every player is going to play the game. This is why when you are watching someone test your game you do not, under any circumstances say anything at all to them. You see what they are going to do, how they react, etc. If they are never able to figure out a puzzle, that is your clue to make it easier. If they get through something far too easily (and this is a pattern) you know to make it harder. Once it is out there though, don't punish the player for trying to play their character the best way they see fit. It's their choice and if they are capable of being stronger or quicker than you intended, that is your fault. <quote>Seeing as they screwed up and everyone who wants to rush for experience is at level 80+, I doubt they would want to raise other classes in power. They are doing what looks like quick hacks to cut the experience gain for powerfull/high level characters. I think when people would start reaching level 90+ in a month or two they would release another "balancing patch", with even more ridiculous experience cuts. Obviously, the skills which allow to kill monsters in hell/hell would have to be weakened too.</quote> Well that's another issue. There are always going to be powergamers who play through the game faster than you would like (akin to the 6 and under times reported for FAKK 2). However, there are a whole lot of other people (a whole lot more mind you) who are not speeding along and are having a hard enough time going at the rate that is already set. I don't have the time to play that the hardcore diablo players do so I a go pretty darn slow. The more they disable me, the slower I go, the more frustrated I get. They need to ignore those couple of gamers who are going to go faster than they want, no matter what changes they make to the classes, and focus on making sure the largest chunk of their audience is able to enjoy themselves. <quote>If they would remove the character level cap, and if they would be releasing addons with more powerfull monsters periodically (Mlvl 100+), then they would be able to balance the game by raising other classes to normal level. Instead they are doing an addon which would have two more character classes. They decided to rebalance classes already, how much worse would it be with addition of another 2?</quote> Hopefully these are the only major changes they will make though and everyone can settle down and get back to the business of just enjoying the game. It is a much tougher to battle balance by increasing the classes that are lacking, but it's a way to handle it that leaves customers pleased, so long as you tell them why the changes are made. Ex: Barbarian Whirlwind is too powerful so we made Paladin's Zeal more effective to counterbalance the situation. ---- <quote>Wow. That was really well said Charlie. I never thought of it that way before ... why take away from some people ... give to everyone else. That way you get to rebalance the game, and everyone is happy. Like you said, who would bitch about getting MORE strength? Neat ...</quote> That was actually a problem with some of the weapons in Sin deathmatch. The little that we did get to test it, we make the stronger weapons weaker instead of working on the weaker weapons and making them more fun to use. The end result was that a good chunk of people felt the weapons were anemic and lacked "oomph". Charlie Wiederhold |
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<quote>Of course Blizzard had to tone down the necro and barbarian. Barbarians and Necros comprise the top 28 players in the world on battle.net Are people who play barbarians and necros simply 'better'? Is this some freak coincidence? Ummm, no?</quote> Who's fault was that though? The people who played those Barbarians and Necros? <b>NO!</b> Then why are they the ones who have to get punished for playing effective classes in an effective manner? Wouldn't you have preferred they help out your Paladin to compete by upping some of his skills? I can't imagine you saying "God Damn you Blizzard! My Zeal is more effective now, I can rely on it so much better and am a more powerful character because of it! DAMN YOU TO HELL SATAN SPAWN!!!!!" :) Charlie Wiederhold |
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<b>Charlie Wiederhold</b> (#63): <QUOTE>Are people who play barbarians and necros simply 'better'? Is this some freak coincidence? Ummm, no?</QUOTE> That doesn't prove nothing, so you seen a butch of people who need a social life, big deal. Level 80 characters? They worked hard to get up there, and now you are telling me that they should be lowered because of their hard work? <I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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One thing that some people are forgetting here is that play balance is not just about balancing the classes against one another. It's also about balancing the players against the monsters. I was a wizard/admin on MUDs for many years, so I can sympathize with what Blizzard has to deal with here. When one class is more powerful than another, you can't always just increase the powers of the less powerful class. If you do that, you run into an ever upward spiral of increasing character power. That requires constantly increasing the stats of all of the monsters and items in the game. Using this technique, you're in for a near infinite amount of work on game balacing. For example, if instead of decreasing the Barbarian's Whirlwhind, Blizzard increases the Paladin's Zeal skill. Now all of the players are tearing through monsters way too fast and there's no challenge in getting experience. Ok, easy enough - make the monsters tougher, right? Aside from the players bitching about monsters being tougher, there's a new problem because now that the monsters are tougher we see that the Paladin is having much more success with Zeal than the Barbarian is with Whirlwind. That means we need to up the Barbarian skills again and we need to make the monsters tougher or both classes will be ripping through them too fast. And oh yeah, because everything has scaled up in power, the items are lagging behind and need to be increased as well. Well, after all of that is said and done, it turns out that there's a few items that are way too powerful but we can't take them away because people will complain. So that means another round of increasing everything else to be on par with those few items. See the problem here? And this example only includes 2 classes, not 5. This method of "always increase player powers" to solve the problem with unbalanced classes simply isn't feasible. The only feasible way is to envision a certain difficulty with the game and tweak things up or down to match that vision. Hitting a moving target is much more difficult. Let's face it, no matter what you do, there will always be players who will whine unless they can walk through the game with a "Sword of all-monster instant slaying" or the "Chainmail of never get hit". Those players need to be ignored because they are the small minority, even though they tend to make the most noise. Most people enjoy a game to be at least relatively challenging. One of my 2 main characters is a necro, and I'm glad that they toned down CE. That skill was way too overpowered. The game just wasn't any fun - one corpse, and I could clean out an entire room. The really sick part is that the spell damage scaled up with the number of players in the game, so a necro could easily solo in an 8 player Hell mode game - that's just stupid. I can't comment on Whirlwind because I've never played a Barbarian. If you look at the B-net forums over the past week or so, you'll see that opinions on the patch are really split about 50/50. I do agree that Blizzard kinda screwed people in the way that they did the patch. What they SHOULD have done is somehow allowed people to reallocate skill points that were put into the nerfed skills. People would still complain (they ALWAYS do), but at least now the rational people would be happy since they could us the skill points elsewhere. Q |
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Topic: Rules of Engagement, Lesson #1 -- Say Nothing
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