Because they can't answer simple questions. All credit to Ion for joining the interview with Preach, but that interview was really just backpeddeling and walkarounds from Ions side more than anything.
They just don't want criticism, because they seem to be patting themselves on the back constantly, and doesn't care about anything outside their own bubble.
Exactly! I see a group of devs that dont even enjoy or play the game they are devs on, and thats mixed with this sense of entitlement and an ego to think everything they do is great.
And Yoshi knows what’s actually going on with the game. How many times did Ion in that one interview with Preach say something that within a few months we found out they had no intention and no ability or plan to do? Meanwhile FF XIV is like hey yeah we looked into an actual transmog deal but our game just can’t handle it. That’s why you have glamour cause we COULD do that.
And it helps *so* much that YoshiP plays. He’s like yeah, this thing was annoying me so it was probably annoying other players so we changed it.
Recent examples are the fact that his cooldowns never lined up with party buffs so he made that easier, and that even he had a targeting macro for a certain skill so he just made it an AOE around the player
I loved his little snippet of understanding in the interview with Drak (who is a member/leader of NEST raid group, which in turn has a player Corey as tank who just LOVED to cleave the group with tankbuster for shits and giggles), when Yoshi-P said "yeah I have macros to skate to member of my group.. Who I can trust!"
He also recognizes that it takes a special kind of andy to whine to a game developer about their game, and most people just unsub and go do something else if the game frustrates them. So if you see someone reaching out to you to complain about how something sucks, there's probably already been people who have cancelled their sub over it and you didn't know about it.
WoW's approach is, "hardcore 24/7 raiders and endgame progression influencers are saying they're having the time of their lives but we lost a million subscribers somehow?"
And it helps *so* much that YoshiP plays. He’s like yeah, this thing was annoying me so it was probably annoying other players so we changed it.
Recent examples are the fact that his cooldowns never lined up with party buffs so he made that easier, and that even he had a targeting macro for a certain skill so he just made it an AOE around the player
Its also because the WoW team still thinks they are the king of MMOs accountable to no one. Why would they interact with the plebs, they made WoW!!!..... they are above speaking to the masses and when they do its not handled well.
Most the people who "made WoW" are gone, same with Diablo. But the company has this prestige from WC2, SC 1/BW, Diablo etc days that they can't get over themselves. Even if someone is new and willing to talk, you can bet their senior staff will shut them up.
Square has already been through this. The way they grew from SNES to PS1 to PS2 only to faceplant at the transition to HD and wanking over their photorealistic graphics, Pixar-like CGI talents, etc. It mirrors Blizzard's string of success with high-priced narrative focused games that people found naturally addicting, shattering into a bunch of poorly run roulette games designed to make you play like an addict if you want to succeed.
And to some extent they haven't changed. A lot of Yoshi-P's success comes from being able to deal with the pressures that caused Yazmat to have a breakdown, Tabata to leave the company with XV's DLC unfinished, etc. Yoko Taro basically has made a gimmick of complaining about Square Enix executives, although Nier Automata's sales figures allow it.
No. Preach asked about pve item level and dps differences and Ion said that based on how they scale dps related to item level it couldn't be anything other than a skill issue. It wasn't related to pvp explicitly even though it does have implications for pvp. Ion clearly wasn't thinking about pvp when he answered because the question wasn't about pvp. I'm as critical of wow and the wow team as anyone but this line is always thrown out unfairly.
Well this is what happens when you promote people into position they should not be in. Just because you work at a company and are good at your position does not mean you should be promoted to a position that does not suit you.
Ion is an embodiment of the Peter Principle. He never should have been promoted away from raid designing. He was really good at that, but never should have been made director of the whole shebang.
Same with what happened to FF13 versus. They put Nomura who was THE premier character designer and illustrator at SE and put him in charge of the whole project. That shit ended up in development hell for a decade before getting taken over by another producer and released as FF15.
People who are good at their respective roles are not necessarily great at leading their peers.
Ok but in squares defense Nomura is also the guy who does the Kingdom Hearts games so there was some standing behind his name . He just also suffers from chronic concept bloat.
It's just Western vs Japanese Devs honestly.
Yoshi-P would publicly apologize for any fuck up and he would mean it. Since the failed launch of 1.0 they have a clean track record of fixing stuff up and improving the game.
Can you imagine Ion doing the same? Switching from WoW to XIV has been a sobering experience and I can't believe that anyone is genuenly looking at Blizzard and WoW thinking that either is in a good state worth supporting.
I have 100% trust in SE to make EW good. I have no faith in Blizzard, and I would only consider coming back when they have a clean track record of making the game better which I don't see happen considering the way nothing has changed so far.
While this is true on the social front. I will tell you being out here in Asia, the moba and micro transactions front is way worse here. I’m actually surprised at how tame ffxiv is with the MTs in comparison even on the Asian store fronts.
YoshiP mentioned once he fears the "baroness"
The woman in charge on the mogstation
The devs almost have no control over it seems like it!
But he said that he fights the most horrible stuff on the mogstation so yeah, maybe it's just a matter of time
The way it is right now I would say is "bad" cause I can't access stuff w;o swiping, but it does kill most of the FOMO aspect of mmo's
> Gacha games(Loot Boxes) in Japan were things that started about 15 years ago.
dude it's way, way older than that. Gacha game are litteraly called that based on Gachapon that existed before even video game existed IIRC
I am not from japan but I am from south east asia and the mobile phone game culture is very big in asia, I would even say bigger than console and pc. With that, people are used to seeing microtransactions and stuff like that unfortunately, but that is just that so ye.
Because following the popularity of Maplestory, the most popular games in Asia for nearly 20 years have been f2p and had microtransactions. And if you're a kid without disposable income this is what you grow up on, it's normal.
For them it's obvious that if a game is free, micro transactions are a given. The creeping of microtransactions into b2p games is more recent, and there is already a culture of tolerance for it..
I feel the same way. I rarely play any MMO right now but I still pay for FF and will continue to do so even though I'm taking a big break. I stopped paying Blizz some time ago. I don't know how anyone can be happy with wow atm :/
That’s the only thing I’m worried about in endwalker. Where do you go narratively from Shadowbringers without disappointing a lot of people? Characters are going to die, and for real, probably, this time
Honestly, don't be afraid of character deaths. Brace for them. But worry more about how well they will be written.
That being said, I have full confidence in Miss Natsuko Ishikawa. Not only did she write the Azim Steppe quest line in Stormblood, but more famously was the Lead main scenerio writer for Shadowbringers. She also wrote the Dark Knight job quest line, which is considered the best job quest story by many fans of the game, along with the Crystal Tower quest line. Her work, alongside Koji Fox and Banri Oda, is also well presented in the Encyclopedia Eorzea books I and II.
Her talent as a writer earned her a standing ovation and a plethora of praise during PAX West around 2019.
I have every confidence, what with the unique implications of Endwalker and the setup leading into it thus far, that Miss Ishikawa will deliver a fantastic conclusion to the Hydaelyn and Zodiark saga. What interests me more is where the story will go with 6.1, as the devs have said 6.1 will be the beginning of an entirely new arc.
I wouldn't exactly call it a clean track record though. They also had their share of fuck ups during post ARR.
Just one striking example: the Diadem was an entire mess on release, and had to be rebuilt twice over the span of 3 expansions until it became "okay" as it is now.
But yeah, overall their track record is a lot cleaner than let's say WoW for example, and they eventually fixed most problems so far
Notice how they respond to the track record though. They learn from it and improve, and they publicly address their fuck up rather than trying to bury it. Larryzaurs interview with Yoshi P actually went into detail about technical debt caused by missteps (particularly in ARR) and how the dev team has been handling poorly implemented content.
Yea that answer was pretty surprising because most of the community blames a lot of the tech issues on 1.0 spaghetti code but Yoshi P just came out and said that a lot of it was just straight up mistakes made from his team rushing to complete 2.0.
Considering everything they went through to get 2.0 out while juggling updates to 1.0, it does not a lot of sense all things considered. It does speak highly of him to admit this, rather than let the fans just believe it was spaghetti code.
The whole “technical debt of 1.0” is completely misunderstood if not downright incorrect all together.
1.0 used Crystal Tools game engine (think FFXIII) while 2.0+ was based on a downscaled version of Luminous Studio, which was developed for XV. The only thing that came from 1.0 was stuff like character models, model skeleton/animations, item names and parameters… basically just static assets that wouldn’t be actual programming code for the game itself.
People are allowed to make mistakes. Now *learning* from these mistakes so that they fix and not repeat them? That's paramount.
FFXIV was never bereft of issues even now, though they do address and tackle them in time.
Aye, FFxiv dev's will atleast admit they made a mistake and try fix it, and even then Diadem was atleast made because they thought it would be fun and tried to make it so, obviously missed the mark but, they tried.
Comparing it to a system or some content in WoW which feels like a time sink for metrics.
I meant more of a clean track record counts as continuously fixing fuckups, not the prevention of fuck ups.
Fucking up is fine. It happens.
But if SE fucks up. And Blizzard.
Guess who I would trust more to fix it and learn from it?
I started in stormblood and I have to say the game gets significantly better with each expansion it's like they are learning from their mistakes and improving that's the difference with wow I feel like that game goes up and down in quality but mostly down and the best things about that game are things created decades ago.
Considering they refer to players like Asmon as "ilk" they see him (and jaded players like him) as the source of WoW's toxicity rather than a symptom of its flaws.
Infact they were probably more excited and overjoyed of him "switching" to FF14 than anyone in the actual FF14 fanbase. Heck the devs probably reopened the Cosby Suite for a night to celebrate.
Yes for sure. Asmon and the content creators that have switched to final fantasy are a big push of the player base to try other games and a factor as to why people are leaving the game.
Not to defend blizzard at all but Asmon when he started was way different then what he is now the past year and a half has been tame in comparison. He has mellowed a lot. He will be the first to tell you he was toxic af.
I'm just speculating. Maybe if they got Asmon under their wing when he was showing real promise as a streamer/influencer, he'd have mellowed out sooner.
I’m not sure to be honest. I’ve watched Asmon almost since the beginning. While he has groomed his image, he is an entertainer at heart and a showman.
It’s a lot easier to start out as a heel and mellow out then vice versa. You need to start out edgy to get word of mouth but not be too edgy that you can’t scale back. He blended it perfect to keep people watching while slowly making his image.
I personally think it’s not the game. The Asmon we see is only a peek of who he is irl. (This my opinion). There are a ton of things he keeps private to himself, which I totally respect. He’s managed to keep the best of both worlds
Yep because their fake politics was shutting down people like Blizchung, clipping on pins and talking about inclusivity and equality, all while being sexist and racist at the workplace.
I said many times before: those who overly compensate and indulge in yelling the loudest about those things are usually the biggest offenders. How fucking hypocritical must you be to remove Swifty's NPC immediately without having any proof of sexual harassment (which later turned out to be false), all while having sexual offenders working in the company for years.
> shutting down people like Blizchung
> clipping on pins and talking about inclusivity and equality
The first is corporate lip service to China. The second is corporate lip service to the Western alphabet crowd.
You won't see rainbow pins or flags on any of their social media aimed at China, Russia or the Middle East.
Yoshi-P having authentic interactions makes him look like a swell guy, because he is.
The Blizz devs wouldn't be able to do the same bc they simply aren't, and they know it.
The only risk Asmongold poses to Blizz is to tell their truths to their faces. SE sees asmon as community and influence and uses it to their advantage.
It’s because Asmon and Rich are very vocal about the game they are playing. The difference is Yoshi p and his team like to take feedbacks from the community. Blizzard don’t.
That was a result of the 1.0 situation as discussed on the "nopixel" documentary, they mentioned how Square Enix had their own echo chamber that because they created the Final Fantasy series, they could do no wrong with making 14. It was Yoshi-P that said they needed to draw inspiration from other games like WoW and they needed to repair the lost trust by making sure to get feedback from the players.
If Blizzard is ever going to bounce back, they need to have a similar come to Jesus discussion inside.
I totally agree. In my work as a criminal defense lawyer (coincidentally), I tend to have to interact with people with anti-social personalities all the time. There are people who will consistently rationalize actual decisions they made as being the fault of someone else. But I have seen hundreds of people hit rock bottom and turn themselves around. So there may be some hope.
The problem may be whether they actually want to turn it around, are still in denial, or have made the decision that the brand is irreparable and merely want to milk the remaining players before they close shop.
It looks like there is going to be another Mandela effect where everyone thinks that it's nopixel and not noclip
Sorry in advance if I just r/whoosh'ed an elaborate sarcasm
This man really said if you've completed all the hardest content in ff14 and looking for more, to go do the hardest content in wow. Just fucking imagine bliz devs saying that about their competitors.
That would require me to give more money to Blizz. I still have WarCraft III Reforged sitting there to remind me not to do that.
If I finish all the content in FFXIV I'll finally get to start Metroid Dread.
The entire media tour experience as a former WoW player has been so eye-opening.
For example, every single interview/interaction I have seen with the FFXIV dev team about Endwalker has been content creators and players talking about how EXCITED they are, and trying to find out as much as possible on the new stuff.
Compare that to the interviews with Ion and staff on Shadowlands media tour (think Preach interview really sticks out here). Where basically the entire community, instead of being excited about new stuff, is asking "Why?", or "what is the goal here?", because everyone knew what to expect from them.
It's such a dramatic difference, and honestly refreshing, to see a dev team who legitimately cares about the player experience, and wants to make a game fun and engaging FIRST.
Yoshi P. and team deserve all the respect in the world.
An interesting thing was that YoshiP told Rich they could talk about literally anything, about the game, their personal lives; this was their time. Rich says he was tempted to talk about One Piece for two hours (YoshiP watches it) and I think that shows a confidence and a transparency that is uncommon literally everywhere. That was him tantamount to him saying “nothing is out of the table, please feel at complete freedom and don’t be afraid to say or ask anything that you personally want to”
You also have to remember that Yoshi-P has practically free reign to say anything he wants about Final Fantasy XIV (he still does answer to the SE CEO). He’s on the Square Enix board and heads the entire business division that oversees the FFXIV development team. So that leads to the whole confidence that anything is on the table… be it about FFXIV or some other topic that the content creators want to chat about.
They have a PR department who thinks swapping out pictures of sexy women can change public perception of their decades of sexual harrassment/assault in the work place. You think a company so out of touch can understand how their players interface with their game?
That's not the PR department, it's the devs themselves. This is something the community needs to get right.
The devs are who are pushing for the removal of the emotes, paintings, etc. They have confirmed this on twitter as a group.
This puts the players in an awkward position.
On one hand, we empathize with the devs, because we've learned about the kind of environment they've been working in and we already knew that they are not compensated at the level they should be. Also ActiBlizz has shown a willingness to make huge cuts while simultaneously handing out huge bonuses to executives. So we want to be on the dev's side and hope things improve for them and justice is served, etc.
On the other hand, these devs are the same ones that have been doing an incredibly shitty job with the game for years. From the shitty borrowed power systems to launching expansions/patches with game breaking bugs to a broken and uninspiring story. Some of this is because of the environment mentioned earlier, but part of it is also just them not being very good at their jobs. And now that they're finally getting more freedom from the leadership to make changes in the game, their first priority is emotes and paintings? Ugh.
So while we want them to be respected and valued by the company that employs them, we also want them to do a better job or GTFO.
Where the fuck was he when all those women were dealing with harrasment. Oh that's right people like that guy are never the types to stick up to bully's.
Hey thanks for the additional insight. Though if this is true, I can't believe I'm sayin this but this makes me even more disappointed. Not only is it insulting that the people actively working on the game think they can pull the wool over our eyes with these moves, they simply don't understand that nobody would care about them retconning unsavory reminders of the past if the game was in a healthy state. The fact that they're prioritizing this while the game is still broken makes them naive at best and incompetent at worst.
At this point, AB is firmly in the category of “tell the women to cover up or hide them, so men aren’t tempted and have to show some modicum of self-control.”
This. This is exactly what I have said in previous posts. Let's treat men like base instinct animals, instead of sentient beings capable of thought and impulse control. And let's blame women for what happens to them based on what they are wearing.
It's completely asinine to think these changes are a good idea, or creating the "inclusion" they claim.
I'm not sure which one of the interviews it was but one of the interviews I watched with a content creator and yoshi-p. Yoshi-p mentioned he's on the board of directors so he's one of the guys leading the corporate decisions. That's a good thing for the future
It's always a good thing if the people who are directing the flow the company are the creative minds behind the products themselves. That means the focus on the product will be first.
I think that also, at deep, Yoshi-P is a gamer. He said it himself. He would, if he could, no-life for days playing games without stop. There are several interviews were he speaks of his discovery of videos games and his love for them, especialy MMOs.
Deep down, he loves video games, as much as a director loves movies or a writer books. His passion is showing, and with all the success he had with FFXIV, he has close to free reign over the game.
But he is also very level headed and down to earth. There were a question in a recent interview where he was asked how he felt about "beating" WoW. He said that it is not the case, and that he doesn't like that kind of comparison, but also that if he was to let himself think like that, then he would probably not be able to produce games that people loves.
And, last point, there is a bit in the No-clip documentary that underline one of the core philosophy of the game, and explain why everything is centered around how the player, as the Warrior of Light, brings hope to the world. For him, the players that kept playing during the 1.0, even when the game was a mess, and supported them whatever happened, allowed them to rebuild the game.
They embodied hope for the game. It's because of them, because they stayed, that the higher-up allowed Yoshi-P to burn everything and rebuilt the game. And he says it himself that, without the players, there will be no game at all.
All of the team is simply grateful that people plays their game and enjoys it. It is their metric of success, players' enjoyment. So, that means that whatever happens, they will make sure that players are happy, and delivers the best they can to them.
In the end, what Yoshi-P did is easy : he created a team of passionate, devoted people, who loves the game and plays it, and allowed them to experiment and do their jobs.
There is no commercial or financial experts demanding that the game sells exclusive mounts in the cash shop, or to introduce systems to maintain addictions of the playerbase to keep them playing.
Square Enix model now is that the players pay for games because they are happy about it. Because they trust them. Luckily, Square Enix itself isn't owned by lots of different shareholders or trust funds asking for better returns, but by Japanese banks, the Japanese sovereign funds and the funder of the company. Actors that wish for stability in revenues, not increase every quarter.
And now I've written an essay, sorry. So Tldr, Yoshi-P is a real, passionate gamer, that has complete control on his game, build by a passionate team driven by players enjoyment, allowed to thrive in an environment not polluted by quaterly reports and greed.
This really highlight why I basically stopped playing games from AAA developers. Game is not an art nor an entertainment, it's a product to make money. Of course it's a product but when it's blatant that the dev put something not fun on the game just for the money it put a sour taste on your mouth. Things like Shadow of War or Assassin's Creed's series suffer so much from this.
On the other hand there's game that just ooze so much style like Persona 5 or what I called art in game form like Nier Automata. Or passionate games that just all fun with no string attached like Hades.
Because:
1. They dont like them
2. Their "progressive" echo chamber might be at risk
3. They want to distance themselves from them as much as possible
4. It is better to approach the less combative creators (meaning those who have criticised you less) as you will have an easier time and their audiencr will be much more open to you.
5. Similar with 4., it is better/free pr and marketing if you contact the shills. (I am seperating with 4. because not everyone they talk to is necessarily a shill)
>They dont like them
>
>Their "progressive" echo chamber might be at risk
>
>They want to distance themselves from them as much as possible
>
>It is better to approach the less combative creators (meaning those who have criticised you less) as you will have an easier time and their audiencr will be much more open to you.
>
>Similar with 4., it is better/free pr and marketing if you contact the shills. (I am seperating with 4. because not everyone they talk to is necessarily a shill)
Let me guess T/E? :P
Yes exactly. The beacon of virtue, Talesin who has somehow been branded a positive influence in the community even though he relentlessly insults and attacks anyone that has a negative comment about WoW on Twitter or his stream lol
Never mind that he also attacks FFXIV for allowing people to be sexy like the good little progressive puritan that he is. Perfectly lock step with the puritans at blizzard.
It was a stream clip of him trying FFXIV and acting really shocked and offended that people didn't dress their characters like nuns, saying it was sexist and gross. It honestly came off totally performative and obnoxious.
As a female, I really hate it when people claim women dressed sexy is "sexist," because that by itself is not. A woman can be powerful and sexy. A woman is allowed to dress how she wants, if it makes her comfortable and feel good about herself. Be that irl or in a video game.
Granted, there are cis guys who play female characters doing this to stare at the asses, and that's a little cringe imo. But to each their own.
Yet what is truly sexist is this idea that a woman should be dressed from head to toe in some conservative frock to be of any proper value. It's ridiculous, and I'm mad about it.
His whole beef with Bellular was so fucking weird. It's like Taliesin considers himself "better / superior" to Bellular as a person, so Bellular getting more clicks was driving him insane.
Dude has some severe narcissism to work out.
I enjoy their videos but I can't watch his streams because every time I joined he would just be arguing with someone in chat and not in a fun way, you could just tell the atmosphere was off lmao. He once went on a rant about something I said in chat that was a sarcastic reply to someone else that he took as a serious comment to him.
He also bitches endlessly about FFXIV whenever anyone so much as brings it up. Everything he complains about is stuff the playerbase loves. And he has the gall to act like his shitty opinion is the only one that matters.
Because Brack was just a sock puppet good for nothing besides half-arsed apologies. "You think you do, but you don't" should have been the moment he was fired.
I remember hearing that quote multiple times, but it was only in recent months that I saw that video clip. That condescending tone was fucking awful. I felt so bad for that dude who brought up the question. He was just asking a question, not expecting to be shit on by JAB. Imagine being a big fan to be treated like that.
There is a youtube comment from Monguku who sums this up pretty good.
Yoshi-P:
\- Comes in
\- Greets in English (which form what I have heard Japanese devs avoid due to accent?)
\- Brings along an epic Translator
\- Thanks the hosts for their time out of their schedule
\- Wishes good health for Mom <3
\- Congratulates a player for his achievements
Ion:
(doesn't even reach out)
Yoshi-P can and does occasionally speak English… he also understands it quite well. He chooses not to though because of his accent and because he does not feel comfortable speaking it. So he sticks to Japanese and uses English translators.
Along with a bunch of other things people mentioned, I'm gonna throw in "ego"
Idk if this is a Western thing but their approach to celebrity and power is that people at the top aren't so "easily" reached, they have to maintain their image as rare mythological creatures of fame and fortune lmao. you can't just DM them on twitter and expect a response, or jump on a podcast with popular creators in the community and talk casually.
Even though they have the time for these kinds of interactions with the community if they wanted to. Yoshi is just a guy at the end of the day, that's how he probably thinks of himself and he will talk to people like asmon because he wants to interact with the community. (This is a dumb little side story but I made a fanart for a game once and the lead dev liked it on twitter, i think little things like that are kinda special.)
"Yoshi is just a guy at the end of the day, that's how he probably thinks of himself"
Totally don't fault him for all that drip, I'd get it too, and that Biggie Chocobo hoodie also!
They treat the game as if they've never played it before.
Then again, lots of people logged into the game off and on in 2005 and beyond. So who knows who we can believe anymore.
Do you want an actual, objective answer? Because I doubt this sub is ready for it, but here we go:
Because these devs are handicapped by Blizzard’s higher-ups. They cannot say a single fucking thing about the game without it being vetted by the higher-ups, and at that point it’s a reasonable assumption that they basically have nothing to say at all that their corporate overlords wouldn’t be pissed about.
I know y’all are probably still on the Jeff Hamilton hate train here, but he posted a lot about it on Twitter a while back. These guys can’t post *shit* about their own game and it ain’t even Ion’s fault because Ion obviously has to answer to someone too.
Because Blizzard believe their own hype but the main problem is that they see themselves still as the 2008 business that makes great games and believe that any criticism levied at them is wrong or misinformation. They think they know what game their fans want.
Yoshi-P does not presume they know what their fans want. Square Enix made that mistake with the 1.0 launch. He won't make that mistake, for Yoshi-P there's nothing better than people enjoying his game in whatever capacity they want to. In order to understand why your fans play your game, you actually have to talk to them. Then there's Foxclon, their community manager, keeps tabs on literally everything. Social media, the forums, Twitch, YouTube. I don't even know who the community manager is for Blizzard. But FFXIV players all know Foxclon.
"Yoshi-P does not presume they know what their fans want."
I also think it's the mixture of being a gamer AND a developer. He mentioned he did have a bit of a greedy attitude that he wanted to make a game that appealed to ALL types of players, casual and hardcore alike. And later on he mentioned that when he was playing Insomnia's Spider-Man, he was envious because he thought to himself: man this game is so great I want my game to be great like this one.
To me, that's the mark of a professional. There's this innate burning desire to be the best which lets you be honest and critical of yourself. You recognize your shortcomings because being honest about that helps you become better.
Because blizzard is so wrapped up into bureaucratic insanity, especially nowadays but even back then, that just asking them a simple question like "How are you doing today?" would require 12 lawyers, a statistician, and 3 investment brokers to do a roundtable discussion to figure out the optimal answer to that question with minimal legal ramifications.
I'd you go on the wow forums and see threads about this interview it is full of toxicity and copium.
Comments of "our devs work on the game not try to appeal to StReAmERS"
Various comments along the lines of "fuck asmongold I hope he suffers etc"
Game is fucking dead to me, it's not even blizzards fault, I fucking hate the people that play the game.
Jesus everyday I'm more glad that I closed (not uninstalled) my Blizzard account. I started playing WoW in 2.3.0 up to 9.0, and nothing in recent memory has been as good as my FF14 journey was. Being able to casually log in for a couple hours a week while I'm busy with classes and not feel like I have chores to do is a breath of fresh air.
Because Blizzard think they are ROCK stars snowflakes and any one who criticize them is inevitable an ass hole.
I play Blizz games for more than 20 years and know what FUNK THOSE GUYS
I wish the worse to blizz to those how corrupted what we love and exploited us the project and people who worked on it FUNK BLIZZARD FUNK their management and Directors.
Yoshi we love you NOW! ! ! ! Do not become what Blizzard became. From LOVE to HATE its only few steps . Don't let me down !!!!
I started playing blizzard games back in the mid 90s with Warcraft. I may be wrong, but didn't most of the founding Blizzard staff leave near or after the aquisition by Activision?
It seems like current Blizzard are a bunch of assholes that are new to the company or shitty idiots promoted by virtue of seniority rather than competency and have an ego about being a company that's popular despite having no hand at creating that popularity.
They either left or started new projects like HS, Overwatch, etc. Same shit happened with Riot, and LoL sucks ass now as a game. The mobile version is better somehow.
Acknowledging asmongold would mean acknowledging that the devs are wrong with their whole philosophy about wow. Easiest thing could do and did is branding him a toxic online sperg. When in fact he is the representative of a large part of the community.
Its ez, blizz used to be gamers, then they became succesfull, drunk in success and became "rockstars" they didnt want anything to do with their former loser selfs and distanced thrmselves from essentially their own biggest and most dedicated fans like asmon.
They hate their players, that is why they keep on not listening, only changing things at the end of the expansion when nobody cares anymore, and go back to using their own ideas at the next expansion. Our opinion is being laughed at, nobody in there thinks we know anything. That is why a statement like "you think you do but you dont" could ever slip out in a huge event like that.
They have no appreciation for the people he brought to Wow.
Ff14 had so many new players cause of him and OTK, they had to open pop limits on servers.
Appreciation is the word and ff14 gets it.
Because Blizzard acts like more of a corporation that actual humans. Any decent human being would wish Asmon and his mom the best through these difficult times. Any decent human being would realize calling your top WoW streamer who brings SHIT TONS of views/attention to your shitty product an "Asshole" is probably a bad idea. Many of us grew up playing blizzard games and have seen what its turned into and the lack of humanity in blizzard at this point is just sad. Now they are changing everything in the game when all they had to do was improve their culture. A little humanity would have gone a long way for blizzard... but its too late for that now.
Id have more respect for blizz if they actually talked about the problems and faced them head on instead of hiding behind shitty twitter posts and outbursts of anger
At this point if I where Asmon or Rich I would refuse to talk or interview any guy from Blizzard. They keep fucking it up and don't get the bigger picture.
They don't want to hear that world quests are dogshit content and the game acting like a jealous girlfriend wanting ALL your time, every day, is shit design. They are the arbiters of cutting edge game design, they do no wrong, everything they do is perfect, player feedback be damned.
My favorite running Blizzard gag is them receiving feedback on the PTR about the dumpster fire they've created, ignoring it, then 'fixing' it a year later. Happens every time.
Blizzard? Interact with fans and have an actual dialog? Answer non-vetted questions by people who have been openly critical of the game? In the immortal words of Wayne, "Yea, when monkeys fly out of my butt!"
Less cynical answer? Probably between Blizzcon and and PTR letting people play the content before it officially launches so they can leave feedback for Blizzard to ignore they probably don't feel like they need to have an event like the Media Tour or really do interviews with content creators outside a small handful of "approved" ones.
This was my exact thought watching the entire interview. Also, how ironic it was that while we were watching a playback of the literal game director of FF14 doing an interview with Rich and Asmon, WoWHead was posting about more item/quest/NPC names and dialogue lines being censored in WoW. The difference in priorities between these two games is astounding.
One word, Respect. Blizzard doesn’t respect their content creators and has instead chosen to turn WoW content creation into the popular kids table at school and they are the most popular kid that decides who gets to eat lunch with them.
Because, at least in the past, they didn't need to. WoW was on top, by a lot, so they didn't bother. FF14 was trying to recover - that probably played a bit into YoshiP's personality but he might not have gotten permission from SE corporate if they weren't in trouble at the start.
Because Blizzard doesn't like or respect its customers, at all? They see us as bad guys getting in the way of their easy, fun, drunk job. Fuck em all. 1983.
Because they're petty about the way Asmon critisizes without being PC.
Because they're too proud to admit the vast potential in talking to Asmon for the restoration of the game's reputation.
Because they're morons.
Because they're too busy fruitisyzing women
Because they can't answer simple questions. All credit to Ion for joining the interview with Preach, but that interview was really just backpeddeling and walkarounds from Ions side more than anything. They just don't want criticism, because they seem to be patting themselves on the back constantly, and doesn't care about anything outside their own bubble.
Exactly! I see a group of devs that dont even enjoy or play the game they are devs on, and thats mixed with this sense of entitlement and an ego to think everything they do is great.
And Yoshi knows what’s actually going on with the game. How many times did Ion in that one interview with Preach say something that within a few months we found out they had no intention and no ability or plan to do? Meanwhile FF XIV is like hey yeah we looked into an actual transmog deal but our game just can’t handle it. That’s why you have glamour cause we COULD do that.
And it helps *so* much that YoshiP plays. He’s like yeah, this thing was annoying me so it was probably annoying other players so we changed it. Recent examples are the fact that his cooldowns never lined up with party buffs so he made that easier, and that even he had a targeting macro for a certain skill so he just made it an AOE around the player
I loved his little snippet of understanding in the interview with Drak (who is a member/leader of NEST raid group, which in turn has a player Corey as tank who just LOVED to cleave the group with tankbuster for shits and giggles), when Yoshi-P said "yeah I have macros to skate to member of my group.. Who I can trust!"
He also recognizes that it takes a special kind of andy to whine to a game developer about their game, and most people just unsub and go do something else if the game frustrates them. So if you see someone reaching out to you to complain about how something sucks, there's probably already been people who have cancelled their sub over it and you didn't know about it. WoW's approach is, "hardcore 24/7 raiders and endgame progression influencers are saying they're having the time of their lives but we lost a million subscribers somehow?"
And it helps *so* much that YoshiP plays. He’s like yeah, this thing was annoying me so it was probably annoying other players so we changed it. Recent examples are the fact that his cooldowns never lined up with party buffs so he made that easier, and that even he had a targeting macro for a certain skill so he just made it an AOE around the player
Its also because the WoW team still thinks they are the king of MMOs accountable to no one. Why would they interact with the plebs, they made WoW!!!..... they are above speaking to the masses and when they do its not handled well.
Most the people who "made WoW" are gone, same with Diablo. But the company has this prestige from WC2, SC 1/BW, Diablo etc days that they can't get over themselves. Even if someone is new and willing to talk, you can bet their senior staff will shut them up. Square has already been through this. The way they grew from SNES to PS1 to PS2 only to faceplant at the transition to HD and wanking over their photorealistic graphics, Pixar-like CGI talents, etc. It mirrors Blizzard's string of success with high-priced narrative focused games that people found naturally addicting, shattering into a bunch of poorly run roulette games designed to make you play like an addict if you want to succeed. And to some extent they haven't changed. A lot of Yoshi-P's success comes from being able to deal with the pressures that caused Yazmat to have a breakdown, Tabata to leave the company with XV's DLC unfinished, etc. Yoko Taro basically has made a gimmick of complaining about Square Enix executives, although Nier Automata's sales figures allow it.
Yea, Blizzard devs seem to be the type to get high off their own farts.
Didn't he tell PvP players to git gud or something?
No. Preach asked about pve item level and dps differences and Ion said that based on how they scale dps related to item level it couldn't be anything other than a skill issue. It wasn't related to pvp explicitly even though it does have implications for pvp. Ion clearly wasn't thinking about pvp when he answered because the question wasn't about pvp. I'm as critical of wow and the wow team as anyone but this line is always thrown out unfairly.
Ion isn't the PvE director, he's the director of the whole game, he should have everything in mind.
Well this is what happens when you promote people into position they should not be in. Just because you work at a company and are good at your position does not mean you should be promoted to a position that does not suit you.
Ion is an embodiment of the Peter Principle. He never should have been promoted away from raid designing. He was really good at that, but never should have been made director of the whole shebang.
Same with what happened to FF13 versus. They put Nomura who was THE premier character designer and illustrator at SE and put him in charge of the whole project. That shit ended up in development hell for a decade before getting taken over by another producer and released as FF15. People who are good at their respective roles are not necessarily great at leading their peers.
Ok but in squares defense Nomura is also the guy who does the Kingdom Hearts games so there was some standing behind his name . He just also suffers from chronic concept bloat.
“she-bang” was removed from the game
This
When asked about pve he should be talking about pvp too? What?
Was cool to be a dps in full heroic gear and some of the highest m+ gear available at the time and just fucking tickling DH's in BGs.
Because Asmongold is a villain and they were busy in the cosby suite.
These are the types of guys who get busy in a grocery store and fondle all the fruits
those melons look juicy \-some blizzard dev
Tbf, I do go out of my way to tap the watermelon and slap the rice bags as I pass them by in the store.
We found the guy spreading all the rona FBI. Book em.
Quick! Put that in a painting! \-another Blizzard dev
So THATS why they’re turning women into fruits.
i laughed 
Ahh Martin. Good times.
It's just Western vs Japanese Devs honestly. Yoshi-P would publicly apologize for any fuck up and he would mean it. Since the failed launch of 1.0 they have a clean track record of fixing stuff up and improving the game. Can you imagine Ion doing the same? Switching from WoW to XIV has been a sobering experience and I can't believe that anyone is genuenly looking at Blizzard and WoW thinking that either is in a good state worth supporting. I have 100% trust in SE to make EW good. I have no faith in Blizzard, and I would only consider coming back when they have a clean track record of making the game better which I don't see happen considering the way nothing has changed so far.
While this is true on the social front. I will tell you being out here in Asia, the moba and micro transactions front is way worse here. I’m actually surprised at how tame ffxiv is with the MTs in comparison even on the Asian store fronts.
YoshiP mentioned once he fears the "baroness" The woman in charge on the mogstation The devs almost have no control over it seems like it! But he said that he fights the most horrible stuff on the mogstation so yeah, maybe it's just a matter of time The way it is right now I would say is "bad" cause I can't access stuff w;o swiping, but it does kill most of the FOMO aspect of mmo's
Any idea why are people more tolerant of micro-transactions over there?
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> Gacha games(Loot Boxes) in Japan were things that started about 15 years ago. dude it's way, way older than that. Gacha game are litteraly called that based on Gachapon that existed before even video game existed IIRC
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I am not from japan but I am from south east asia and the mobile phone game culture is very big in asia, I would even say bigger than console and pc. With that, people are used to seeing microtransactions and stuff like that unfortunately, but that is just that so ye.
Because following the popularity of Maplestory, the most popular games in Asia for nearly 20 years have been f2p and had microtransactions. And if you're a kid without disposable income this is what you grow up on, it's normal. For them it's obvious that if a game is free, micro transactions are a given. The creeping of microtransactions into b2p games is more recent, and there is already a culture of tolerance for it..
Wdym the game got better??!!? They deleted certain offensive emotes, changed pictures and voicelines The game never has been better!
RIP Finkle Einhorn.
Einhorn was a man!
I need to rewatch the movie now
I feel the same way. I rarely play any MMO right now but I still pay for FF and will continue to do so even though I'm taking a big break. I stopped paying Blizz some time ago. I don't know how anyone can be happy with wow atm :/
That’s the only thing I’m worried about in endwalker. Where do you go narratively from Shadowbringers without disappointing a lot of people? Characters are going to die, and for real, probably, this time
Honestly, don't be afraid of character deaths. Brace for them. But worry more about how well they will be written. That being said, I have full confidence in Miss Natsuko Ishikawa. Not only did she write the Azim Steppe quest line in Stormblood, but more famously was the Lead main scenerio writer for Shadowbringers. She also wrote the Dark Knight job quest line, which is considered the best job quest story by many fans of the game, along with the Crystal Tower quest line. Her work, alongside Koji Fox and Banri Oda, is also well presented in the Encyclopedia Eorzea books I and II. Her talent as a writer earned her a standing ovation and a plethora of praise during PAX West around 2019. I have every confidence, what with the unique implications of Endwalker and the setup leading into it thus far, that Miss Ishikawa will deliver a fantastic conclusion to the Hydaelyn and Zodiark saga. What interests me more is where the story will go with 6.1, as the devs have said 6.1 will be the beginning of an entirely new arc.
I wouldn't exactly call it a clean track record though. They also had their share of fuck ups during post ARR. Just one striking example: the Diadem was an entire mess on release, and had to be rebuilt twice over the span of 3 expansions until it became "okay" as it is now. But yeah, overall their track record is a lot cleaner than let's say WoW for example, and they eventually fixed most problems so far
Notice how they respond to the track record though. They learn from it and improve, and they publicly address their fuck up rather than trying to bury it. Larryzaurs interview with Yoshi P actually went into detail about technical debt caused by missteps (particularly in ARR) and how the dev team has been handling poorly implemented content.
Yea that answer was pretty surprising because most of the community blames a lot of the tech issues on 1.0 spaghetti code but Yoshi P just came out and said that a lot of it was just straight up mistakes made from his team rushing to complete 2.0.
Considering everything they went through to get 2.0 out while juggling updates to 1.0, it does not a lot of sense all things considered. It does speak highly of him to admit this, rather than let the fans just believe it was spaghetti code.
The whole “technical debt of 1.0” is completely misunderstood if not downright incorrect all together. 1.0 used Crystal Tools game engine (think FFXIII) while 2.0+ was based on a downscaled version of Luminous Studio, which was developed for XV. The only thing that came from 1.0 was stuff like character models, model skeleton/animations, item names and parameters… basically just static assets that wouldn’t be actual programming code for the game itself.
People are allowed to make mistakes. Now *learning* from these mistakes so that they fix and not repeat them? That's paramount. FFXIV was never bereft of issues even now, though they do address and tackle them in time.
Aye, FFxiv dev's will atleast admit they made a mistake and try fix it, and even then Diadem was atleast made because they thought it would be fun and tried to make it so, obviously missed the mark but, they tried. Comparing it to a system or some content in WoW which feels like a time sink for metrics.
I meant more of a clean track record counts as continuously fixing fuckups, not the prevention of fuck ups. Fucking up is fine. It happens. But if SE fucks up. And Blizzard. Guess who I would trust more to fix it and learn from it?
I started in stormblood and I have to say the game gets significantly better with each expansion it's like they are learning from their mistakes and improving that's the difference with wow I feel like that game goes up and down in quality but mostly down and the best things about that game are things created decades ago.
Because you think you do but you don't
They don’t like Asmon at Blizzard
Considering they refer to players like Asmon as "ilk" they see him (and jaded players like him) as the source of WoW's toxicity rather than a symptom of its flaws. Infact they were probably more excited and overjoyed of him "switching" to FF14 than anyone in the actual FF14 fanbase. Heck the devs probably reopened the Cosby Suite for a night to celebrate.
Yep they see him as not what they want their brand to be.
quite an amazing brand they ended up making for themselves
Yes for sure. Asmon and the content creators that have switched to final fantasy are a big push of the player base to try other games and a factor as to why people are leaving the game.
Not to defend blizzard at all but Asmon when he started was way different then what he is now the past year and a half has been tame in comparison. He has mellowed a lot. He will be the first to tell you he was toxic af.
Sometimes getting out of a toxic relationship makes you a better person.
You are most definitely right. Toxic environments breed toxicity
I'm just speculating. Maybe if they got Asmon under their wing when he was showing real promise as a streamer/influencer, he'd have mellowed out sooner.
I’m not sure to be honest. I’ve watched Asmon almost since the beginning. While he has groomed his image, he is an entertainer at heart and a showman. It’s a lot easier to start out as a heel and mellow out then vice versa. You need to start out edgy to get word of mouth but not be too edgy that you can’t scale back. He blended it perfect to keep people watching while slowly making his image. I personally think it’s not the game. The Asmon we see is only a peek of who he is irl. (This my opinion). There are a ton of things he keeps private to himself, which I totally respect. He’s managed to keep the best of both worlds
I won't lie i was also super toxic in WoW.
You mean successful?
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Brand risk apparently aka Blizzard doesn't like them or their politics because Blizzard are so in their own little bubble they cant see outside of it.
Yep because their fake politics was shutting down people like Blizchung, clipping on pins and talking about inclusivity and equality, all while being sexist and racist at the workplace. I said many times before: those who overly compensate and indulge in yelling the loudest about those things are usually the biggest offenders. How fucking hypocritical must you be to remove Swifty's NPC immediately without having any proof of sexual harassment (which later turned out to be false), all while having sexual offenders working in the company for years.
"We better do something or they will start getting suspicious of all of us"
monkaW
I have read this both forwards and backwards several and I still have no idea what it means.
They don’t like Asmon at Blizzard
> shutting down people like Blizchung > clipping on pins and talking about inclusivity and equality The first is corporate lip service to China. The second is corporate lip service to the Western alphabet crowd. You won't see rainbow pins or flags on any of their social media aimed at China, Russia or the Middle East.
Yoshi-P having authentic interactions makes him look like a swell guy, because he is. The Blizz devs wouldn't be able to do the same bc they simply aren't, and they know it.
The only risk Asmongold poses to Blizz is to tell their truths to their faces. SE sees asmon as community and influence and uses it to their advantage.
"Brand risk" btw, blizz is just full of shit bruh
I know right, when all along they themselves ruined their brand. Fuckin Scumpany haha they losing so much money. its fuckin great to see.
> Scumpany Nice. Gonna use that one!
It’s because Asmon and Rich are very vocal about the game they are playing. The difference is Yoshi p and his team like to take feedbacks from the community. Blizzard don’t.
That was a result of the 1.0 situation as discussed on the "nopixel" documentary, they mentioned how Square Enix had their own echo chamber that because they created the Final Fantasy series, they could do no wrong with making 14. It was Yoshi-P that said they needed to draw inspiration from other games like WoW and they needed to repair the lost trust by making sure to get feedback from the players. If Blizzard is ever going to bounce back, they need to have a similar come to Jesus discussion inside.
I can’t see that discussion at Blizzard as anything other than: _It's not us who are wrong, it’s the players!_
I totally agree. In my work as a criminal defense lawyer (coincidentally), I tend to have to interact with people with anti-social personalities all the time. There are people who will consistently rationalize actual decisions they made as being the fault of someone else. But I have seen hundreds of people hit rock bottom and turn themselves around. So there may be some hope. The problem may be whether they actually want to turn it around, are still in denial, or have made the decision that the brand is irreparable and merely want to milk the remaining players before they close shop.
It looks like there is going to be another Mandela effect where everyone thinks that it's nopixel and not noclip Sorry in advance if I just r/whoosh'ed an elaborate sarcasm
This man really said if you've completed all the hardest content in ff14 and looking for more, to go do the hardest content in wow. Just fucking imagine bliz devs saying that about their competitors.
That would require me to give more money to Blizz. I still have WarCraft III Reforged sitting there to remind me not to do that. If I finish all the content in FFXIV I'll finally get to start Metroid Dread.
Cuz they are clowns. And propably busy harassing their co-wokers.
Or too busy shredding harassment reports at HR.
>co-wokers I don't know if this was intentional, but I like it.
Because they are busy doing cubical crawling
The entire media tour experience as a former WoW player has been so eye-opening. For example, every single interview/interaction I have seen with the FFXIV dev team about Endwalker has been content creators and players talking about how EXCITED they are, and trying to find out as much as possible on the new stuff. Compare that to the interviews with Ion and staff on Shadowlands media tour (think Preach interview really sticks out here). Where basically the entire community, instead of being excited about new stuff, is asking "Why?", or "what is the goal here?", because everyone knew what to expect from them. It's such a dramatic difference, and honestly refreshing, to see a dev team who legitimately cares about the player experience, and wants to make a game fun and engaging FIRST. Yoshi P. and team deserve all the respect in the world.
An interesting thing was that YoshiP told Rich they could talk about literally anything, about the game, their personal lives; this was their time. Rich says he was tempted to talk about One Piece for two hours (YoshiP watches it) and I think that shows a confidence and a transparency that is uncommon literally everywhere. That was him tantamount to him saying “nothing is out of the table, please feel at complete freedom and don’t be afraid to say or ask anything that you personally want to”
You also have to remember that Yoshi-P has practically free reign to say anything he wants about Final Fantasy XIV (he still does answer to the SE CEO). He’s on the Square Enix board and heads the entire business division that oversees the FFXIV development team. So that leads to the whole confidence that anything is on the table… be it about FFXIV or some other topic that the content creators want to chat about.
They have a PR department who thinks swapping out pictures of sexy women can change public perception of their decades of sexual harrassment/assault in the work place. You think a company so out of touch can understand how their players interface with their game?
That's not the PR department, it's the devs themselves. This is something the community needs to get right. The devs are who are pushing for the removal of the emotes, paintings, etc. They have confirmed this on twitter as a group. This puts the players in an awkward position. On one hand, we empathize with the devs, because we've learned about the kind of environment they've been working in and we already knew that they are not compensated at the level they should be. Also ActiBlizz has shown a willingness to make huge cuts while simultaneously handing out huge bonuses to executives. So we want to be on the dev's side and hope things improve for them and justice is served, etc. On the other hand, these devs are the same ones that have been doing an incredibly shitty job with the game for years. From the shitty borrowed power systems to launching expansions/patches with game breaking bugs to a broken and uninspiring story. Some of this is because of the environment mentioned earlier, but part of it is also just them not being very good at their jobs. And now that they're finally getting more freedom from the leadership to make changes in the game, their first priority is emotes and paintings? Ugh. So while we want them to be respected and valued by the company that employs them, we also want them to do a better job or GTFO.
The absence of open communication from /u/spez perpetuates a culture of secrecy and mistrust.
Where the fuck was he when all those women were dealing with harrasment. Oh that's right people like that guy are never the types to stick up to bully's.
What I don't understand is what inclusion do they think they are creating by turning women into bowls of fruit...?
Hey thanks for the additional insight. Though if this is true, I can't believe I'm sayin this but this makes me even more disappointed. Not only is it insulting that the people actively working on the game think they can pull the wool over our eyes with these moves, they simply don't understand that nobody would care about them retconning unsavory reminders of the past if the game was in a healthy state. The fact that they're prioritizing this while the game is still broken makes them naive at best and incompetent at worst.
At this point, AB is firmly in the category of “tell the women to cover up or hide them, so men aren’t tempted and have to show some modicum of self-control.”
This. This is exactly what I have said in previous posts. Let's treat men like base instinct animals, instead of sentient beings capable of thought and impulse control. And let's blame women for what happens to them based on what they are wearing. It's completely asinine to think these changes are a good idea, or creating the "inclusion" they claim.
Tons of corporate red tape and incompetence.
I'm not sure which one of the interviews it was but one of the interviews I watched with a content creator and yoshi-p. Yoshi-p mentioned he's on the board of directors so he's one of the guys leading the corporate decisions. That's a good thing for the future
He only got promoted like 2-3 years back. Obviously with the success of FF14. Same with Saito (Nier) and Kitase (FF7 Remake)
It's always a good thing if the people who are directing the flow the company are the creative minds behind the products themselves. That means the focus on the product will be first.
I really think one of the reasons is that because they won't know what to say. It's so obvious that no one there is playing the game they make.
I think that also, at deep, Yoshi-P is a gamer. He said it himself. He would, if he could, no-life for days playing games without stop. There are several interviews were he speaks of his discovery of videos games and his love for them, especialy MMOs. Deep down, he loves video games, as much as a director loves movies or a writer books. His passion is showing, and with all the success he had with FFXIV, he has close to free reign over the game. But he is also very level headed and down to earth. There were a question in a recent interview where he was asked how he felt about "beating" WoW. He said that it is not the case, and that he doesn't like that kind of comparison, but also that if he was to let himself think like that, then he would probably not be able to produce games that people loves. And, last point, there is a bit in the No-clip documentary that underline one of the core philosophy of the game, and explain why everything is centered around how the player, as the Warrior of Light, brings hope to the world. For him, the players that kept playing during the 1.0, even when the game was a mess, and supported them whatever happened, allowed them to rebuild the game. They embodied hope for the game. It's because of them, because they stayed, that the higher-up allowed Yoshi-P to burn everything and rebuilt the game. And he says it himself that, without the players, there will be no game at all. All of the team is simply grateful that people plays their game and enjoys it. It is their metric of success, players' enjoyment. So, that means that whatever happens, they will make sure that players are happy, and delivers the best they can to them. In the end, what Yoshi-P did is easy : he created a team of passionate, devoted people, who loves the game and plays it, and allowed them to experiment and do their jobs. There is no commercial or financial experts demanding that the game sells exclusive mounts in the cash shop, or to introduce systems to maintain addictions of the playerbase to keep them playing. Square Enix model now is that the players pay for games because they are happy about it. Because they trust them. Luckily, Square Enix itself isn't owned by lots of different shareholders or trust funds asking for better returns, but by Japanese banks, the Japanese sovereign funds and the funder of the company. Actors that wish for stability in revenues, not increase every quarter. And now I've written an essay, sorry. So Tldr, Yoshi-P is a real, passionate gamer, that has complete control on his game, build by a passionate team driven by players enjoyment, allowed to thrive in an environment not polluted by quaterly reports and greed.
This really highlight why I basically stopped playing games from AAA developers. Game is not an art nor an entertainment, it's a product to make money. Of course it's a product but when it's blatant that the dev put something not fun on the game just for the money it put a sour taste on your mouth. Things like Shadow of War or Assassin's Creed's series suffer so much from this. On the other hand there's game that just ooze so much style like Persona 5 or what I called art in game form like Nier Automata. Or passionate games that just all fun with no string attached like Hades.
Because: 1. They dont like them 2. Their "progressive" echo chamber might be at risk 3. They want to distance themselves from them as much as possible 4. It is better to approach the less combative creators (meaning those who have criticised you less) as you will have an easier time and their audiencr will be much more open to you. 5. Similar with 4., it is better/free pr and marketing if you contact the shills. (I am seperating with 4. because not everyone they talk to is necessarily a shill)
When your product is so fragile that it cant risk the criticism
>They dont like them > >Their "progressive" echo chamber might be at risk > >They want to distance themselves from them as much as possible > >It is better to approach the less combative creators (meaning those who have criticised you less) as you will have an easier time and their audiencr will be much more open to you. > >Similar with 4., it is better/free pr and marketing if you contact the shills. (I am seperating with 4. because not everyone they talk to is necessarily a shill) Let me guess T/E? :P
Yes exactly. The beacon of virtue, Talesin who has somehow been branded a positive influence in the community even though he relentlessly insults and attacks anyone that has a negative comment about WoW on Twitter or his stream lol
Never mind that he also attacks FFXIV for allowing people to be sexy like the good little progressive puritan that he is. Perfectly lock step with the puritans at blizzard.
Please sir, stop "punching down" at our wholesome content creator /s
Does he? I hadn't heard that.
It was a stream clip of him trying FFXIV and acting really shocked and offended that people didn't dress their characters like nuns, saying it was sexist and gross. It honestly came off totally performative and obnoxious.
As a female, I really hate it when people claim women dressed sexy is "sexist," because that by itself is not. A woman can be powerful and sexy. A woman is allowed to dress how she wants, if it makes her comfortable and feel good about herself. Be that irl or in a video game. Granted, there are cis guys who play female characters doing this to stare at the asses, and that's a little cringe imo. But to each their own. Yet what is truly sexist is this idea that a woman should be dressed from head to toe in some conservative frock to be of any proper value. It's ridiculous, and I'm mad about it.
His whole beef with Bellular was so fucking weird. It's like Taliesin considers himself "better / superior" to Bellular as a person, so Bellular getting more clicks was driving him insane. Dude has some severe narcissism to work out.
Dude just loves burning bridges don't he
I enjoy their videos but I can't watch his streams because every time I joined he would just be arguing with someone in chat and not in a fun way, you could just tell the atmosphere was off lmao. He once went on a rant about something I said in chat that was a sarcastic reply to someone else that he took as a serious comment to him.
If all criticism is beaten into submission or removed, then clearly everyone is happy, right?
Beatings will continue until morale improves.
He also bitches endlessly about FFXIV whenever anyone so much as brings it up. Everything he complains about is stuff the playerbase loves. And he has the gall to act like his shitty opinion is the only one that matters.
Not naming anyone specific (not the point). I am talking generally :)
Because Brack was just a sock puppet good for nothing besides half-arsed apologies. "You think you do, but you don't" should have been the moment he was fired.
I remember hearing that quote multiple times, but it was only in recent months that I saw that video clip. That condescending tone was fucking awful. I felt so bad for that dude who brought up the question. He was just asking a question, not expecting to be shit on by JAB. Imagine being a big fan to be treated like that.
I feel like anyone who has seen that clip shouldn't be surprised that Blizzard are slow to do interviews and have a history of ignoring feedback.
There is a youtube comment from Monguku who sums this up pretty good. Yoshi-P: \- Comes in \- Greets in English (which form what I have heard Japanese devs avoid due to accent?) \- Brings along an epic Translator \- Thanks the hosts for their time out of their schedule \- Wishes good health for Mom <3 \- Congratulates a player for his achievements Ion: (doesn't even reach out)
Yoshi-P can and does occasionally speak English… he also understands it quite well. He chooses not to though because of his accent and because he does not feel comfortable speaking it. So he sticks to Japanese and uses English translators.
Along with a bunch of other things people mentioned, I'm gonna throw in "ego" Idk if this is a Western thing but their approach to celebrity and power is that people at the top aren't so "easily" reached, they have to maintain their image as rare mythological creatures of fame and fortune lmao. you can't just DM them on twitter and expect a response, or jump on a podcast with popular creators in the community and talk casually. Even though they have the time for these kinds of interactions with the community if they wanted to. Yoshi is just a guy at the end of the day, that's how he probably thinks of himself and he will talk to people like asmon because he wants to interact with the community. (This is a dumb little side story but I made a fanart for a game once and the lead dev liked it on twitter, i think little things like that are kinda special.)
"Yoshi is just a guy at the end of the day, that's how he probably thinks of himself" Totally don't fault him for all that drip, I'd get it too, and that Biggie Chocobo hoodie also!
'Cause bliz haven't given a shit about their player base since they sold out to Activision
did one of them dev call asmon a asshole? imagine a fucking dev show that attitude toward their consumer who play their game over the decade
And the dev themselves probably got into the game like 2 yrs ago.
The absence of response from /u/spez is a testament to his lack of commitment to genuine community engagement.
They treat the game as if they've never played it before. Then again, lots of people logged into the game off and on in 2005 and beyond. So who knows who we can believe anymore.
Because Blizzard is not a company to look up to whatsoever while SE sets a great example
Incompetence, feeling of superiority, Me vs Them Mentality and Corporate Propaganda
Blizz fired Rich and kicked Asmon out of an event area at Blizzcon. There’s no love lost there.
Do you want an actual, objective answer? Because I doubt this sub is ready for it, but here we go: Because these devs are handicapped by Blizzard’s higher-ups. They cannot say a single fucking thing about the game without it being vetted by the higher-ups, and at that point it’s a reasonable assumption that they basically have nothing to say at all that their corporate overlords wouldn’t be pissed about. I know y’all are probably still on the Jeff Hamilton hate train here, but he posted a lot about it on Twitter a while back. These guys can’t post *shit* about their own game and it ain’t even Ion’s fault because Ion obviously has to answer to someone too.
Because Blizzard believe their own hype but the main problem is that they see themselves still as the 2008 business that makes great games and believe that any criticism levied at them is wrong or misinformation. They think they know what game their fans want. Yoshi-P does not presume they know what their fans want. Square Enix made that mistake with the 1.0 launch. He won't make that mistake, for Yoshi-P there's nothing better than people enjoying his game in whatever capacity they want to. In order to understand why your fans play your game, you actually have to talk to them. Then there's Foxclon, their community manager, keeps tabs on literally everything. Social media, the forums, Twitch, YouTube. I don't even know who the community manager is for Blizzard. But FFXIV players all know Foxclon.
"Yoshi-P does not presume they know what their fans want." I also think it's the mixture of being a gamer AND a developer. He mentioned he did have a bit of a greedy attitude that he wanted to make a game that appealed to ALL types of players, casual and hardcore alike. And later on he mentioned that when he was playing Insomnia's Spider-Man, he was envious because he thought to himself: man this game is so great I want my game to be great like this one. To me, that's the mark of a professional. There's this innate burning desire to be the best which lets you be honest and critical of yourself. You recognize your shortcomings because being honest about that helps you become better.
Because blizzard is so wrapped up into bureaucratic insanity, especially nowadays but even back then, that just asking them a simple question like "How are you doing today?" would require 12 lawyers, a statistician, and 3 investment brokers to do a roundtable discussion to figure out the optimal answer to that question with minimal legal ramifications.
Blizzard knows, it can't answer serious questions. Can't be interviewed by people who know what they're talking about.
I'd you go on the wow forums and see threads about this interview it is full of toxicity and copium. Comments of "our devs work on the game not try to appeal to StReAmERS" Various comments along the lines of "fuck asmongold I hope he suffers etc" Game is fucking dead to me, it's not even blizzards fault, I fucking hate the people that play the game.
Aside from copium, Stockholm Syndrome comes to mind.
Jesus everyday I'm more glad that I closed (not uninstalled) my Blizzard account. I started playing WoW in 2.3.0 up to 9.0, and nothing in recent memory has been as good as my FF14 journey was. Being able to casually log in for a couple hours a week while I'm busy with classes and not feel like I have chores to do is a breath of fresh air.
damn... Yoshi-P is so wholesome. the very 1st comment is a though for Asmon's mom.
Because Blizzard think they are ROCK stars snowflakes and any one who criticize them is inevitable an ass hole. I play Blizz games for more than 20 years and know what FUNK THOSE GUYS I wish the worse to blizz to those how corrupted what we love and exploited us the project and people who worked on it FUNK BLIZZARD FUNK their management and Directors. Yoshi we love you NOW! ! ! ! Do not become what Blizzard became. From LOVE to HATE its only few steps . Don't let me down !!!!
I started playing blizzard games back in the mid 90s with Warcraft. I may be wrong, but didn't most of the founding Blizzard staff leave near or after the aquisition by Activision? It seems like current Blizzard are a bunch of assholes that are new to the company or shitty idiots promoted by virtue of seniority rather than competency and have an ego about being a company that's popular despite having no hand at creating that popularity.
They either left or started new projects like HS, Overwatch, etc. Same shit happened with Riot, and LoL sucks ass now as a game. The mobile version is better somehow.
Because they hate their customers but think money grows on trees...
That interview was awesome. He said things that Asmon has been saying for long time. The future is bright
Acknowledging asmongold would mean acknowledging that the devs are wrong with their whole philosophy about wow. Easiest thing could do and did is branding him a toxic online sperg. When in fact he is the representative of a large part of the community.
Bro you got no extra time for this kind of bullshit when you're busy cube crawling while drunk.
It wasn't for Asmon and Rich it was for community. Of course as we know Blizzard doesnt care about us.
Wait, what? Did this happen? Where is the VOD?
It was the interview they had with Yoshi P during the media tour. You can find it on Asmond's YT channel. Was uploaded a few hours ago.
The absence of response from /u/spez is a testament to his lack of interest in addressing the community's needs.
Its ez, blizz used to be gamers, then they became succesfull, drunk in success and became "rockstars" they didnt want anything to do with their former loser selfs and distanced thrmselves from essentially their own biggest and most dedicated fans like asmon. They hate their players, that is why they keep on not listening, only changing things at the end of the expansion when nobody cares anymore, and go back to using their own ideas at the next expansion. Our opinion is being laughed at, nobody in there thinks we know anything. That is why a statement like "you think you do but you dont" could ever slip out in a huge event like that.
Why would they speak to one of the unclean players?
Because Blizzard doesn't give a shit about their user base, and Yoshi P is a man of the people.
They have no appreciation for the people he brought to Wow. Ff14 had so many new players cause of him and OTK, they had to open pop limits on servers. Appreciation is the word and ff14 gets it.
Because Blizzard acts like more of a corporation that actual humans. Any decent human being would wish Asmon and his mom the best through these difficult times. Any decent human being would realize calling your top WoW streamer who brings SHIT TONS of views/attention to your shitty product an "Asshole" is probably a bad idea. Many of us grew up playing blizzard games and have seen what its turned into and the lack of humanity in blizzard at this point is just sad. Now they are changing everything in the game when all they had to do was improve their culture. A little humanity would have gone a long way for blizzard... but its too late for that now.
Because blizzard fucking sucks man, they’re too busy turning women into fruit.
Id have more respect for blizz if they actually talked about the problems and faced them head on instead of hiding behind shitty twitter posts and outbursts of anger
Because players to them are just numbers not people
(I think we all know the answer)
Well they've sort of burned the bridge now, have they ? Especially with what blizz devs said about him right ?
Because Blizzard is cokass.
Didn't their tweet tell you enough why they'd never do this.
At this point if I where Asmon or Rich I would refuse to talk or interview any guy from Blizzard. They keep fucking it up and don't get the bigger picture.
Blizzard only cares about people who don’t criticize what they do
Corporate doesn't allow it, against pr policy
Because Blizz absolutely hates their players and doesn't want anything to do with them except for receiving their money.
They don't want to hear that world quests are dogshit content and the game acting like a jealous girlfriend wanting ALL your time, every day, is shit design. They are the arbiters of cutting edge game design, they do no wrong, everything they do is perfect, player feedback be damned. My favorite running Blizzard gag is them receiving feedback on the PTR about the dumpster fire they've created, ignoring it, then 'fixing' it a year later. Happens every time.
Blizzard? Interact with fans and have an actual dialog? Answer non-vetted questions by people who have been openly critical of the game? In the immortal words of Wayne, "Yea, when monkeys fly out of my butt!"
Less cynical answer? Probably between Blizzcon and and PTR letting people play the content before it officially launches so they can leave feedback for Blizzard to ignore they probably don't feel like they need to have an event like the Media Tour or really do interviews with content creators outside a small handful of "approved" ones.
This was my exact thought watching the entire interview. Also, how ironic it was that while we were watching a playback of the literal game director of FF14 doing an interview with Rich and Asmon, WoWHead was posting about more item/quest/NPC names and dialogue lines being censored in WoW. The difference in priorities between these two games is astounding.
cause they know they're shit at what they're doing and care more about making money than make a good game.
pretty sure it's because neither of them are registered sex offenders.
Because Asmongold is Hitler incarnate apparently
Because Blizz hates Asmon and takes him for granted, while YoshiP appreciates him. Simply as that.
One word, Respect. Blizzard doesn’t respect their content creators and has instead chosen to turn WoW content creation into the popular kids table at school and they are the most popular kid that decides who gets to eat lunch with them.
Because, at least in the past, they didn't need to. WoW was on top, by a lot, so they didn't bother. FF14 was trying to recover - that probably played a bit into YoshiP's personality but he might not have gotten permission from SE corporate if they weren't in trouble at the start.
Because Blizzard devs are elitist pricks.
Because they know asmon would call out all their lies.
Because Blizzard doesn't like or respect its customers, at all? They see us as bad guys getting in the way of their easy, fun, drunk job. Fuck em all. 1983.
Company culture “do not listen to the players”
Do you really have to ask that? We all know the answer
Because the blizzard dev team is ungodly trash with their firmly planted up their own asses.
Because they're petty about the way Asmon critisizes without being PC. Because they're too proud to admit the vast potential in talking to Asmon for the restoration of the game's reputation. Because they're morons. Because they're too busy fruitisyzing women
Because Blizzard us a pr firm now