Reign of Gaming

Ok.. here we go.. first, cross posting from that Caitlyn thread to at least keep this semi-organized..

All that said, let me further expand. There is no intent on my part to be unprofessional on the matter. Some have made it abundantly clear that they feel I was rude, obviously this wasn't the intention. The intention is what's stated above. If I did appear to be dismissive, disrespectful, or in any other way non-cooperative, that's my bad and I apologize.

THAT said, with these explanations, I'd like for us to indeed at the very least try the new venue with this particular discussion mind. This is the sort of discussion which honestly should be had on the beta site as this is direct feedback for the dev team to take into account. How best to tell who's in charge that you feel the system is lacking? The people running the venue, inside the venue. True, we don't want to just shunt people over “artificially”, but hey, traffic would be nice to test the environment, to see the lay of the land, and to actually test the viability of the venue with this very sort of extensive and heated discussion. There needs to be some traction to gain traction. There actually is a discussion happening over there and it's honestly, for me at least, quite useful despite people disagreeing with me. Here’s the link:

http://community.na.leagueoflegends....ort_type=best#

Am I crazy to think that the discussion of the viability or lack thereof for this system should be happening there? At the very least, even if it’s negative feedback, we can get some accurate feelings for the venue.

There was a meeting we had with a few of the beta devs and some common red posters. The question was asked, “What could we do to encourage reds to try out the beta?”. For me, what I’d like to set up shop for, would be a general catch-all for Relaunch related questions.

Relaunch feedback is very much based on “feel” for characters. It’s sometimes hard to articulate. So, let’s say that someone makes a very concise point, like someone did in the Sion beta thread a few weeks ago. Boom, it goes right to the top. It was well said, it was chock full of ideas, and it had extensive thoughts. What that did was serve as a vehicle for sentiment. Maybe someone couldn’t have put it better and upvoted. Maybe people who don’t speak english natively were able to get the gist and upvote it because it was said a little more concise than they could have worded it. Maybe it served a purpose for people who found it inconvenient to post and didn’t feel like writing out what they felt so they upvoted. Either way, it was a popular sentiment, it was well constructed, and it was a good respectful read. I was able to take a look and give that feedback to the team that very day. It was easily able to be pointed to when I showed it to FeralPony and Riot Scruffy. We could then discuss the feedback given and easily refer back to it.

Are there costs to that popular opinion rising to the top? Sure, if we want to be starkly objective. Maybe an “unpopular” opinion didn’t get seen. Maybe a very far-down comment was lost in the shuffle. Those are indeed tangible costs, but any system has those costs. What’s important is if the benefits balance out those costs.

Here, in GD, we have the benefit of a certain amount of equality in that every post has the same amount of real estate, it’s all visible, no matter the sentiment, the phrasing or the content. Cool. We have the timeline which is linear and easy to follow in a 1, 2, 3 action of posting. Nice.

The cost of that is, despite the tone, the validity, the lack of validity or the quality of content, everything is of equal visual weight and often blends. As threads progress we even lose the 1, 2, 3 cohesion as the thread populates with posts faster than posters replying to existing posts can keep up, resulting in people not knowing who they’re even responding to. Another cost is toxicity. I am NOT referring to critical feedback. There is a huge difference between well constructed critical feedback and toxic phrased negative remarks. One results in action items, the other results in frustration and no takeaways.

“Hey IronStylus, I think you’re assumptions about the effectiveness of the new forums isn’t realistic because of reasons X, Y and Z. I have this solution in mind: ________”

I can work with that.

“Hey IS, **** off! You’re FORCING us to do something YOU want us to do and we HATE what you’re suggesting. Another great example of you being a ****ing ******bag *******. GG, Riot, go **** yourself.”

I simply can’t get anything out of that, and it just turns me off from engaging.

You might say.. “Hey, too bad, comes with the territory of being a dev, suck it up parrot-boy.”

Indeed, it certainly does come with the territory. I’m helping to make stuff people are passionate about, I’m going to ruffle feathers. However, none of what I do here is in my job description. This is 100% voluntary on my part because I love talking to people and giving insight and context where I can. I want to give people a peek into our process, help educate them as to how the industry works, and generally have confidence that we have players in mind.

But before all of that comes into the equation, I am an artist who has a job to create deliverables for the game. I have daily responsibilities not only to produce content, but to work with my team to help formulate priorities, be part of the greater pipeline, keep concepts coming in for relaunches and their skins, help hold vision on characters, give art feedback, help junior artists, level up my own skills, check with my leads on my own career development, and more. Like anyone else I have my duties, my own personal stress to deal with and my responsibilities.

In addition to that I’m a husband in a committed and happy relationship, I deal with home life, family, planning for a future, and all the worries and anxieties that come with the territory of just trying to get by in this world and eventually become an adult. I am a former sufferer of depression and have a diagnosis for generalized anxiety disorder. I mind my mental health, take care of my physical health, and deal with the demons that we all deal with.

Upon that I go out of my way to engage with players online, at events, on panels with my colleagues, and going a lot of places trying to make the player-dev experience personal. Up to this point I think I do a decent job of that.

Pile on what sometimes happens here in GD, and it becomes a bit too much.

Take a moment to consider how many artists we have. We have a lot. A fraction of them come on here to talk about various subjects. RiotPenguin does an awesome job in engaging with his fanart threads, ohmikegoodness pops in here and there. GrumpyMonkey shows off his work and process, JesterCapp comes in to give technical context, etc. That’s a fraction of our team. The reason? The perception, from some artists, is that they don’t want to deal with the stress from GD. They could be right, or wrong, I encourage them to come on either way. Some do, some don’t. It’s whatever floats their boat. They have their perceptions, and like it or not, as I have experienced personally, perceptions are reality. I know that perception they have isn’t necessarily warranted at times, but I’m not going to force anyone, so I dive in a lot in their stead. I insist on coming back even if I get a little exhausted because I generally don’t let things get me down. Either way, they have a reason for feeling the way they do and I won’t force them into something they aren’t comfortable with.

What I’m hoping, someday, is for the other artists I work with to never have that fear. To enter the community not with the expectations of stardom being thrust upon them, or endless kudos, but with the expectation of calm and rational discussion that results in feedback that they can use. I hope they can enter the community expecting to come out with a generally positive experience, even if players disagree with what they’re saying. At least they’re talking to the people who they’re making the game for. I want our devs to interact as much as possible so long as they’re comfortable.

One way to help that comfort is to make the venue not so overwhelming. GD has its idiosyncrasies, it’s memes, it’s mannerisms, that can be confusing and generally sensory overload when you’re jumping in for the first time. I know I’ve felt it. Eventually though I was able to speak the language. I think it worked mostly. As time went on however, mainly because I’m dealing with creating content that stirs passion and debate, some of the debate not only got heated, but because rather vitriolic. That became hard to manage, and when piled on top of the rest of what I’m doing on a daily basis, it turned out to be more than I could manage.

When the beta site became a thing, I took a look and found it an intriguing prospect. I wanted to leverage it and see if it can help me balance my day job with my player interaction time. I wanted to see how much value I and players could derive from it. Maybe a lot, maybe none, but it was worth a shot. So, here I am, attempting to do just that.

My intention is not to force, but to encourage trying something new. I am indeed trying to find something that works for me in a large regard, because, I’ll be honest, the best way for me to serve you is to get feedback in a particular way sometimes. Other times the venue might need to be different linear might work in other contexts.
I would ask as I have before, what is the cost and what is the benefit to you, the player? Is it having the ability to say whatever, in any tone, and in any emotional state, and potentially have that overlooked a better thing? Or is to phrase things in a concentrated way, in a venue that funnels feedback and have it get right to the dev’s screen a better option? Do you want to be loud or do you want to be heard? They’re not always things that can synergize. You can have passion and still be calm. Some devs can parse the noise. I, many times, cannot. But, I know that I have valuable insight into process, content and other development aspects, and I want to give insight where and when I can.

Personally, I sometimes can’t hear over the noise. That makes me fail at my job in serving you. However, when things are quiet, and sentiments are expressed in a way that channels sentiment to a few key points, I can do a much better job of listening.

I need your help. We’re in this together. I may need you to meet me on different turf when necessary. It’s going to be uncomfortable at times, if I say anything other than that, I’d be lying. Change and iteration means being uncomfortable, but it means we at least have an evolving conversation.

Take that all for what it’s worth. Despite anything, I’m willing to continue with conversations and I understand that we’re all human and we’re going to have our moments of cooperation and discord, agreement and denial. My hope is that we at the very least continue the conversation and ride together down this road, despite the bumps, cracks and holes along the way.

Thanks.

I welcome them to give constructive feedback. It'll be up to them and the users who join the discussion to judge what's valuable in the thread. I'll still gladly read it.