General / Off-Topic Forum posters angry with developers

[Crimson Kaim]

@Cromson Kaim

Sorry, but your parkour team just really doesn't compare.

Sorry, but your lack of willingness to read the full post results in me considering your two lines of forum post worthless due to lack of content.
Read again and reply to all of my points. You will get tea, I promise!

EDIT: Also, Crimson, not Cromson. You have a typo. You're welcome.

 

[RexKraemer]

For me this twitter post is total bull. Whenever I was in a small leading position such as the team leader for some parkour team I was the one doing decisions and what kind of a team leader would I be if I wouldn't explain my decisions to my team? Ofcourse some will moan and come up with other ideas and not so rare in a what others call toxic tone. But you know what? Listen to them....

Now I have read all of it, and you proved my point: nothing toxic at all (at least in your post)! Instead you enlightened me. Have some +rep.

 

[Padaxes]

I don't think it's too bad here , there are a lot of people with conflicting views and a lot of hope. And with hope always comes disappointment.

Generally people seem to be reasonable, it's probably the older age demographic.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

I don't think it's too bad here , there are a lot of people with conflicting views and a lot of hope. And with hope always comes disappointment.

Generally people seem to be reasonable, it's probably the older age demographic.

Conversely there are some pretty high hopes invested in this so some disappointment is inevitable .

In fairness Frontier haven't always been great at communicating. And good communications are vital in managing people's expectations.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

That Twitter thread was so on point that it hurts. This is reason why FD won't tell us a lot more about devs. Why would they? Because they are just toxic people abusing everything you say.

And I am not talking about criticism. It is all fine. Using hyperboles, obvious nonsense posts IS toxicity. If you feel strongly about something you don't like - fine, but think what others might think. Just maybe it is just you. Or maybe actually have something possibly constructive to say to devs. Who knows.

Cue example of all 'what's the point of 2.4' etc. and hyperbole claims about how game is dead etc.

In fairness Frontier haven't always been great at communicating. And good communications are vital in managing people's expectations.

Not sure I agree anymore. FD tried it for quite some time. Every bloody time it blew up in their faces. You know why Mike Evans doesn't visit these forums anymore? Most likely of tons of threats he and Sandro have gotten over their design decisions.

There are just people who need a calm down pill. Communication doesn't help if someone DEMANDS you to change game OR ELSE. Claiming your game is dead if you don't follow his suggestions.

Why devs would keep up with that? Who on Earth would do that?

 

[Ian Skippy]

As the forums descend into madness once more can I please ask posters who are angry with the dev's please take a moment and read this interesting thread;

https://twitter.com/charlesrandall/status/911987526541430784
TLDR TLDC never mind...

Pretty much. Any time a gamer starts talking about 'netcode' or 'engine', you know you're about to experience some world-class ignorance.

"If only FD weren't so greedy to have used P2P, but I bet their crappy engine cant handle pro servers anyway." It all gets very person very fast: lazy, greedy, stupid, lack of creativity, etc. And ofcourse people will say:"Thats just how it goes, professionals learn to discard unreasonable attacks and must keep communicating with us anyway.". Turns out they don't.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Pretty much. Any time a gamer starts talking about 'netcode' or 'engine', you know you're about to experience some world-class ignorance.

"If only FD weren't so greedy to have used P2P, but I bet their crappy engine cant handle pro servers anyway."

This is golden classic. Every time I explain peer to peer decision I get -5 downvotes on reddit.

It is just not worth it.

 

[tomalus]

This forum isnt toxic.If you think this is toxic then you should check any discussion on the internet,anonimity breeds jerks.

 

[Theodrid]

You have to face the facts though, a golden opportunity has been missed, it's no good burying our heads in the sand anymore. During the early access, beta and early days of the game we were all full of hope, the developers were promising the Earth and most of us bought it and treated it as gospel. There were massive possibilities, an epic space opera, a game tugging at our childhood memories and desires, immense space battles, planets filled with things to do and see, a myriad of familiar ships we could fly and explore. There would be the old familiar foes and new ones besides as well as many, many friendly and indifferent alien races and species. On top of all this we could see it all with our friends and battle each other if we so wished, at last the vision would be realised, at last, a modern take on a classic genre and IP, we were deceived.

Anyhoo, enough about Bioware/EA and SWtoR

I think Frontier are doing pretty well, could be better of course and lets hope the core improvements promised deliver on many levels.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Some very good points Kaim!
But how do you deal with toxic individuals without making the problem worse?
I guess it's a well established line a user has to cross for forum infractions but beyond that you can't really control what people write out there in the wild.

My original post was more asking people to talk rather than shout, to not get caught up personally, to not get angered and to maybe just think about how it can be for the developers who while some people might not believe it are generally doing something they love and believe in.

Genuine feedback/debate and especially criticism are essential user feedback!!

One can learn to handle toxic environments. The first step is to accept that toxic environments it created by every indivudal themself. It's like things only become important because we make them important. An expensive car can be the lfie symbol of someone while for me it is just another moving piece of metal. This applies for toxic content as well. it is only toxic because we consider it as toxic. Misunderstandings have their origin in different values/opinions/understandings of said terms.

Side fact: In the old forum with thousands of posts I have never recieved a warning point from a mod (as of infractions in Elite forums). Even by following the guidelines of not attackign someone personally and behaving completely fine according to the forum rules I recieved a personal statement from the main dev that I'd be the most toxic person he ever met. Might be right but the facts are that he failed and lead the game to bankruptcy. Not saying it is JUST because of what I described but it certainly didn't help to ignore the toxic part of the community.

Additionally, I talk to and treat others the same way I would like to be treated and talked to. I also try to follow any forum's guidelines but sometimes specific rules are new to me and I get a warning if I haven't read and understand them completely.
Besides that, learning how to deal with what someone might call toxic requires the willingness to change. A rare sight these days as everyone thinks they are right or that their moral is the only moral acceptable.
The same can also be applied to the PvP vs PvE groups. With PvP ones being the 'toxic' guys (while there are only considered toxic by the PvE group) and the PvE group being the healthy group. Without going into detail, the facts speak for themselves. The pvP members have much more fun than the PvE players who get offended by toxic PvP members (via communitcation or what the PvE group calls 'griefing').
So in the game's interest and for the benfit of the developers health, deaing with toxic communities should be a basic requiernment when applying.

 

[Dan Diplo]

As a newcomer to this forum I've been pretty appalled by some of the disrespectful, rude and downright ignorant comments that have been directed at the devs. People have every right to criticise a product they have purchased and helped fund. But it's possible to do this in a civil and constructive fashion. I've seen the devs called "incompetent", "lazy", "money-grabbing" etc. and that is simply rude. Most developers work long, long hours and do so not for the money but for the love of their craft. They work to tight deadlines, tough budgets and a million other factors that most of you don't realise (yes, I work in the industry, though not in game development).

Let me tell you something: David Braben and Ian Bell fitted the entire original Elite into 32Kb of machine code (in other words, the amount of code was HALF the size of the logo on this forum). Braben coded Frontier in 250,000 lines of 68000 assembly language. He helped design the Raspberry Pi. It's fair to say he's a programming genius. Even if he doesn't code much now you can bet any team he fronts is comprised of talent.

So, criticise, make suggestions, say you hate it - but don't denigrate the people who make it based on some YouTube-level understanding of what is involved in game development.

 

[Ian Skippy]

One can learn to handle toxic environments.

Yeah. But you can also say:"Life is short, and I have better things to do than 'handle toxic environments', AKA 'dealing with online manchilds with various mental issues'. Cant blame a dev for doing so.

 

[Kerrash]

So that tweet storm is basically complaining that the Internetz cannot separate emotion from criticism and it causes a lack of openness?
Have I not being saying this for years?

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Yeah. But you can also say:"Life is short, and I have better things to do than 'handle toxic environments', AKA 'dealing with online manchilds with various mental issues'. Cant blame a dev for doing so.

Their decision and as long as this doesn't leads to failure (aka as long as they have to room to do so) it is okay. Though there are better ways to handle it, it certainly isn't a disaster. Toxic or not, work has to be done like fixing bugs and balancing stuff. I personally really don't care if the dev team lives in a paradise or right next to a vulcano ... just get the game work done and I am fine. Everyone for themselevs after all.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

So that tweet storm is basically complaining that the Internetz cannot separate emotion from criticism and it causes a lack of openness?
Have I not being saying this for years?

More like easy access to keyboard and places to express your emotions leads to venting them on Internet without understanding consequences. Most of time none of stuff written here will be said publicly - because people act very differently face to face.

Thus learning how to being calm and respectful to others is required. But who has time for that

 

[Vorxian]

As a newcomer to this forum I've been pretty appalled by some of the disrespectful, rude and downright ignorant comments that have been directed at the devs.

We're teddy bears. Go check out the EvE Online forum if you don't believe me!

The MODS out there spend 11 out of 12 hours simply locking threads lol.

Atleast forum posters here are passionate enough about the game to actually care

 

[Agony_Aunt]

So, criticise, make suggestions, say you hate it - but don't denigrate the people who make it based on some YouTube-level understanding of what is involved in game development.

Yup, unfortunately, there are far too many people out there that don't know when they are crossing the line.

 

[Noctover]

What he describes is definitly happening here too, but it is by far not the majority here. Most critical posts here are quite polite and trying to be as objective as possible. This community is NOT toxic. There are a small number of toxic people, but they are small, and they don't make the community.

There are so many posts which are very well written and where people did a real good job to address the issues, you will find posts where hours of writing have been invested, they are easier to find than the toxic ones. So, I stress the point: this community is NOT toxic at all.

I agree, ive never stayed with a Forum community for as long. Whilst most are full of toxicity this one for the most part is fine.

 

[Red Anders]

I've said this before but do you know what disheartens me?

The fact that some gamers behave like this is seen as a valid reason to withdraw from communication by developers like the chap whose twitter is linked in the OP.

What I would say to any game developer who feels this way is that whilst I understand (really, I do) that it's obviously not a barrel of laughs to have people with no real understanding of your work environment or the technical skills and knowledge needed to operate within it quacking on about how you're stupid, lazy, ignorant and can't do things which are obviously 'easy' you are lucky beyond belief to have the option of not dealing with those people. In a hell of a lot of other occupations we face exactly the same issue and don't have that option.

More to the point you know the players who don't do all those things? You're treating the opinion of idiots as being a more important factor in your decision making than the wants and needs of the reasonable players when deciding whether to communicate. That's fine, your choice to make (again, lucky you) but at least own it.

 

[zarrazee]

If I only could learn that... I am serious, do you have some hints in how someone can achieve this if he wants to?

One technique I use, is to try to remove myself emotionally from the speech/message.

• I imagine the message is meant for someone else &
• I make a conscious effort to watch what is happening with my emotions &
• I don't send/reply to an email/text etc, until I feel calm & rational.

Check out "Emotional Intelligence"; lots of books & training courses about it.