I can tell you that immediately after the postponement of the game was decided not to speak of the date of issue until we have an exact date and safe to 99.99%. When announcing the release date, you can be confident that it will not be postponed *.
* = Subject to natural disasters, emergencies, unforeseen incidents, problems and so unpredictable.
note: I transalted it, feel free to do your own transaltion
I can tell you that immediately after the postponement of the game was decided not to speak of the date of issue until we have an exact date and safe to 99.99%. When announcing the release date, you can be confident that it will not be postponed *.
* = Subject to natural disasters, emergencies, unforeseen incidents, problems and so unpredictable.
note: I transalted it, feel free to do your own transaltion
Well this does not say anything, but on the same forum i found:
I do not know how to tell you that every site will give you a different date until the official announcement of the date of issue, it is normal.
Eliwadee, the game comes out for sure, 100%, there is no doubt on this point.
On the date of issue, I can confirm once again that we are currently still in line with our latest forecasts, or the first part of 2012.
I don't know italian, but it's clear that he said they are aiming for first half of 2012 release, so it can mean even june lol.. That's what they call "sooner than you think".
Where do you get june? He said first 'part', and he's talking about the latest forecasts, which would be the Q1 2012 given out by actual blizz.
I'm sorry OP, but you clearly don't understand one vital and significant reason for all the complaining all the time. The reason is that Blizzard is always misleading us. Everything they have said about the games development has been wrong on almost all occasions. They never give us a clear answer. If they don't know something, why do they always pretend they do and end up being wrong, they should just stfu and give us an clear and concise answer to the development process when they are 100% sure themselves instead of lying to us all the freaking time! This is what makes this long wait soo much more unbearable.
And the rest of us know that its a changing game lose on on inside information? no thanks.
Just because you dont understand that things can change, and that you can't handle it, does not mean the rest of us, that like knowing this kind of information should suffer from not getting it.
I'm sorry OP, but you clearly don't understand one vital and significant reason for all the complaining all the time. The reason is that Blizzard is always misleading us. Everything they have said about the games development has been wrong on almost all occasions. They never give us a clear answer. If they don't know something, why do they always pretend they do and end up being wrong, they should just stfu and give us an clear and concise answer to the development process when they are 100% sure themselves instead of lying to us all the freaking time! This is what makes this long wait soo much more unbearable.
And the rest of us know that its a changing game lose on on inside information? no thanks.
Just because you dont understand that things can change, and that you can't handle it, does not mean the rest of us, that like knowing this kind of information should suffer from not getting it.
Excuse me but that's not what he's saying. At all. Assuming he's too stupid to understand things can change during development is condescending and rude. Maybe you need to re-read his post.
Most of us are upset not because the game is changing and/or being delayed, but because Blizzard is continually pretending to keep us in the loop with misleading, open-ended language. They do not want an informed customer base, yet they keep feeding us information. This requires misdirection on Blizzard's part, and causes a psychological dissonance in certain among us.. we feel engaged and informed, because we get a lot of information, but the information itself is absolutely worthless, ethereal mist that evaporates at the whims of Blizzard PR. In a word, we feel manipulated, because what Blizzard says doesn't match what Blizzard does.
My point is this: Some people get seriously offended by the way Blizzard handles PR. Some of those people are vocal about it, and seek redress of grievances here, on Blizz official forums, and other ways. Other people don't mind and support Blizz. One view point is NO BETTER than the other. If you think your tolerance of Blizzard is in ANY WAY more valid than other people's intolerance of Blizzard, you need to step back and try to see the world through someone else's eyes, cause yours need a rest.
Now, I will say, the OP did have some good points, and he was striking out mainly at people who extrapolate strange paranoid conspiracies from Blizzard vapor-speak. Fair enough. Myself, and many others in this forum, are the type of people who speak out, sometimes passionately, when something is bothering us. I respect people who don't prefer that type of discourse. What I don't respect is when those people try to say it's not a valid conversation, it's pointless to engage in, and those that do are idiots.
Maybe we should have an official sticky "venting" thread or something.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."
-Thomas Jefferson
I'm sorry OP, but you clearly don't understand one vital and significant reason for all the complaining all the time. The reason is that Blizzard is always misleading us. Everything they have said about the games development has been wrong on almost all occasions. They never give us a clear answer. If they don't know something, why do they always pretend they do and end up being wrong, they should just stfu and give us an clear and concise answer to the development process when they are 100% sure themselves instead of lying to us all the freaking time! This is what makes this long wait soo much more unbearable.
And the rest of us know that its a changing game lose on on inside information? no thanks.
Just because you dont understand that things can change, and that you can't handle it, does not mean the rest of us, that like knowing this kind of information should suffer from not getting it.
Most of us are upset not because the game is changing and/or being delayed, but because Blizzard is continually pretending to keep us in the loop with misleading, open-ended language.
I think we are running low on tin-foil hats..
Why do people keep trying to use this argument, you "KNOW" blizzard is pretending right? No, you don't. Most companies dont even bother to give half the information blizzard does. Blizzard cares about keep us up to date, and people that seem to not understand things change,
that cause blizzard to give "time frames" instead of dates now.
You know back in the day, blizzard gave exact planed dates, 100% exact to what they were hoping for, but they have to push them back and people would complain over and over about this, so what is the solution? blizzard no longer gives us exact dates until the game is pretty much going gold. And when they try to give "basic ideas" and "thoughts" about a release goal, we STILL get people QQing about everything they can about how they are giving us no information now, and how everything they are saying is to just "keep us happy"...
ps: you should reread the guy's post I replied to, as I understood it.
Do me a favor, stop callously insulting people on this forum for trying to have an intelligent discussion. I personally expect more from moderators, but maybe I shouldn't.
Most companies dont even bother to give half the information blizzard does. Blizzard cares about keep us up to date, and people that seem to not understand things change, that cause blizzard to give "time frames" instead of dates now.
Keep believing that Blizzard is so great for "graciously" providing us such a priceless wealth of "information." For a large group of customers, their "information" is anything but informative; it's frustrating, misleading, and un-necessary. In my experience, this kind of continual, intentionally vague, vapor-speak is intended to keep an immature, un-empowered customer base ignorant but engaged. I've worked in software a long time, as a technical marketing engineer, test engineer, development engineer, and in sales. There isn't any paranoia at work. They are literally not allowed to say anything of substance without going through a serious approval chain (just read a day in the life of Bashiok).
I find it particularly cynical your opinion that corporations are impervious from any criticism or accountability to their paying customers. If Blizzard is going to engage their customers by announcing a game 4 years in advance, they have a responsibility to effectively inform their customers, or else their customers are going to get pissed off... which is exactly what happened. Why is this such a travesty to you?
Where there's smoke, there's fire. Where there's a ton of pissed off customers, there is a company that needs to improve their marketing and PR. In my opinion, most people don't think that highly of Blizzard as a company, they only think highly of Blizzard games. That's a fairly fragile brand loyalty.
Now you might argue that in order for them to keep making great games, they will always have to alienate their "impatient" customer base. That could not be farther from the truth. Again, how cynical do you have to be to believe that Blizzard can't have both great PR AND great games?
You know back in the day, blizzard gave exact planed dates, 100% exact to what they were hoping for, but they have to push them back and people would complain over and over about this, so what is the solution? blizzard no longer gives us exact dates until the game is pretty much going gold. And when they try to give "basic ideas" and "thoughts" about a release goal, we STILL get people QQing about everything they can about how they are giving us no information now, and how everything they are saying is to just "keep us happy"...
It's a good point to bring up, that people holding Blizzard accountable to their release dates is what caused Blizzard to STOP giving release dates. But don't be naiive. The PROBLEM was Blizzard missing release dates because they suck at project management they don't value discrete project management deadlines like most other companies do.. The problem was NEVER the customer, because all we ever did was hold Blizzard accountable to their own word. Guess that's a giant inconvenience to them.
The conversation goes roughly like this: Us: "Hey Blizzard, you said the game was gonna be released <date1>. Now you're just gonna push release to <date2>? How can I trust you now?" (2 weeks later) Blizzard: "Trust us. Oh, btw, we're gonna miss <date2>, it's <date3> now. Aren't you glad I communicate with you so much? You should be thankful!" Us: "Why? Some companies announce a game is in development, give concrete dates, meet those dates." Blizzard: "Because we give you waaaay more information than those companies, and we make better games than them." Us: "Well, you do make better games. But maybe I don't need information if it's not accurate, reliable, or even really saying anything we didn't already know..." Blizzard: "But we really want to engage our fans, we love you guys!" Us: "Cool. Well in that case, I have a few questions. How far along are you guys in development? What's going well? What's not? How's testing going?" (2 weeks later) Blizzard: "We're making design decisions and polishing the game, it's looking great. We're in the home stretch." Us: "um.. you MUST be aware that you didn't answer the question at all." (2 weeks later) Blizzard: "Well runestones are pretty weird, it's possible we've made a decision about runestones now. We're in the home stretch of runestone decision making." Us: "You guys are re-writing runestones? Ok. Well, what's the verdict?" Blizzard: "We have several solutions and we're polishing things up, it's looking great and we're really close. Home stretch." Us: "So, hey how about a release date? I mean, we know you are very protective of quality, but you MUST have internal deadlines, right? C'mon, gimme a little something.. you love me, remember?" (2 weeks later) Blizzard: "Early 2012." Us: "What does that mean? Q1? First two months? First half? Jan 17th? wtf?" Blizzard: "It means we pushed release back to 2012" Us: "Ok that's actually MORE vague than 'early 2012', which is an amazing achievement in vagueness." Blizzard fanboy: "Wow dude, stop being such an entitled, whiny little bitch. You should be kissing Blizzard's hairy beanbag just for talking to you at all."
Do me a favor, stop callously insulting people on this forum for trying to have an intelligent discussion. I personally expect more from moderators, but maybe I shouldn't.
Most companies dont even bother to give half the information blizzard does. Blizzard cares about keep us up to date, and people that seem to not understand things change, that cause blizzard to give "time frames" instead of dates now.
Keep believing that Blizzard is so great for "graciously" providing us such a priceless wealth of "information." For a large group of customers, their "information" is anything but informative; it's frustrating, misleading, and un-necessary. In my experience, this kind of continual, intentionally vague, vapor-speak is intended to keep an immature, un-empowered customer base ignorant but engaged. I've worked in software a long time, as a technical marketing engineer, test engineer, development engineer, and in sales. There isn't any paranoia at work. They are literally not allowed to say anything of substance without going through a serious approval chain (just read a day in the life of Bashiok).
I find it particularly cynical your opinion that corporations are impervious from any criticism or accountability to their paying customers. If Blizzard is going to engage their customers by announcing a game 4 years in advance, they have a responsibility to effectively inform their customers, or else their customers are going to get pissed off... which is exactly what happened. Why is this such a travesty to you?
Where there's smoke, there's fire. Where there's a ton of pissed off customers, there is a company that needs to improve their marketing and PR. In my opinion, most people don't think that highly of Blizzard as a company, they only think highly of Blizzard games. That's a fairly fragile brand loyalty.
Now you might argue that in order for them to keep making great games, they will always have to alienate their "impatient" customer base. That could not be farther from the truth. Again, how cynical do you have to be to believe that Blizzard can't have both great PR AND great games?
You know back in the day, blizzard gave exact planed dates, 100% exact to what they were hoping for, but they have to push them back and people would complain over and over about this, so what is the solution? blizzard no longer gives us exact dates until the game is pretty much going gold. And when they try to give "basic ideas" and "thoughts" about a release goal, we STILL get people QQing about everything they can about how they are giving us no information now, and how everything they are saying is to just "keep us happy"...
It's a good point to bring up, that people holding Blizzard accountable to their release dates is what caused Blizzard to STOP giving release dates. But don't be naiive. The PROBLEM was Blizzard missing release dates because they suck at project management they don't value discrete project management deadlines like most other companies do.. The problem was NEVER the customer, because all we ever did was hold Blizzard accountable to their own word. Guess that's a giant inconvenience to them.
The conversation goes roughly like this: Us: "Hey Blizzard, you said the game was gonna be released <date1>. Now you're just gonna push release to <date2>? How can I trust you now?" (2 weeks later) Blizzard: "Trust us. Oh, btw, we're gonna miss <date2>, it's <date3> now. Aren't you glad I communicate with you so much? You should be thankful!" Us: "Why? Some companies announce a game is in development, give concrete dates, meet those dates." Blizzard: "Because we give you waaaay more information than those companies, and we make better games than them." Us: "Well, you do make better games. But maybe I don't need information if it's not accurate, reliable, or even really saying anything we didn't already know..." Blizzard: "But we really want to engage our fans, we love you guys!" Us: "Cool. Well in that case, I have a few questions. How far along are you guys in development? What's going well? What's not? How's testing going?" (2 weeks later) Blizzard: "We're making design decisions and polishing the game, it's looking great. We're in the home stretch." Us: "um.. ok?" (2 weeks later) Blizzard: "Well runestones are pretty weird, it's possible we've made a decision about runestones now. We're in the home stretch of runestone decision making." Us: "You guys are re-writing runestones? Ok. Well, what's the verdict?" Blizzard: "We have several solutions and we're polishing things up, it's looking great and we're really close. Home stretch." Us: "So, hey how about a release date? I mean, we know you are very protective of quality, but you MUST have internal deadlines, right? C'mon, gimme a little something.. you love me, remember?" (2 weeks later) Blizzard: "Early 2012." Us: "What does that mean? Q1? First two months? First half? Jan 17th? wtf?" Blizzard: "It means we pushed release back to 2012" Us: "Ok that's actually MORE vague than 'early 2012', which is an amazing achievement in vagueness." Blizzard fanboy: "Wow dude, stop being such an entitled, whiny little bitch. You should be kissing Blizzard's hairy beanbag just for talking to you at all."
you may state your opinions in an holier then thou attitude (no offense) but your absolutely right. EVERY blizzard post about game info is the most vague bull shit of all time. i have a high tolerance for BS so i didnt care much but it truly is rude of them to fuck with their customer base like that when all we do is hang on every word they say. blizzard is like that ass hole boy friend who constantly plays their GF(s) and all they do is worship the ground they walk on. blizzard needs to STFU or give specifics. the last 8 "announcements" by blizzard just angered me and gave no new information <_<
blizzard should be in politics. *ba dum tss
EDIT: although molster is by far my favorite mod... :/
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
First off, that's not an insult.
Your 100% making things up (aka saying they are "pretending") You have no way of knowing this, you are 100% making something up because it benefits your point of view. Its that simple, and something thats very tiring to see.
Im going to focus on your part about
Now you might argue that in order for them to keep making great games, they will always have to alienate their "impatient" customer base. That could not be farther from the truth. Again, how cynical do you have to be to believe that Blizzard can't have both great PR AND great games?
But then you go on to say.
(in reply to what I said about no longer giving us dates)
It's a good point to bring up, that people holding Blizzard accountable to their release dates is what caused Blizzard to STOP giving release dates. But don't be naiive. The PROBLEM was Blizzard missing release dates because they suck at project management.. The problem was NEVER the customer, because the all we ever did was hold Blizzard accountable to their own word. Guess that's a giant inconvenience to them.
First, you have to think of the company they are, what they have done, and what they like to do.
We know they are a company of people who like to release games once they find them perfect, once they have made something that they can go back and say "yep, we are proud as hell of this product".
We do not see that kind of dedication much. This is a company that threw out a full game due to it not meeting their marks of something they could be proud of.
So lets move on to your point, about "bad project management". I know you were most likely referring to being able to set clear and accurate timeframes. But heres where you either have a positive view and believe, or dont. They have said their timeframes were indeed accurate for the product they were working on. But unlike other devs, if they find out, as they are working on a system, if it does not make the game fantastic in the way they saw it, they scrap it and change it. And you know what, THIS right there, is why there games are so amazing, and why so many people like them. They will take the time and do that, and to totally redesign the game from the point, to make it that golden product that we love.
People knew this about them. Blizzard would give out a date, a date they could meet if something like this was not found, but they did find something, and thus, they had to push their date back. People get mad, they dont take the time and try to understand that, hey, we love their games, they know how to make games. No, they think "They have horrible project management". when thats not the case at all, and THIS is why they stopped giving us dates, because they are not able to change the way they make games, and the day they do, is the day we wont even like the end product anymore.
But lets move to the PR section, where I do see a lot of legitimate issues with, but at the same time, they still do more than most.
Honestly, I feel this part is 100% based on different peoples feelings. They no longer want to give an exact date... theres nothting wrong with that, at least they are given us a time frame for those of us who care..
If they just shut up and give no date, and dont even say they are working on it, until its done, there would be no more threads complaining about it... but... is that really how you want it done? if so...why? The game will still "be done when its done". But at least this way, we get some idea of what they are thinking of for a release date, and ill take that.
There are some areas there PR can work on yes... but I dont think their release dates is one of them.
personally id rather have them say nothing till its done then post vague info updates constantly. i get they are trying not to be too specific so no one uses it against them to get upset but seriously.. say something WORTH saying or say nothing at all. IMHO :/
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
personally id rather have them say nothing till its done then post vague info updates constantly. i get they are trying not to be too specific so no one uses it against them to get upset but seriously.. say something WORTH saying or say nothing at all. IMHO :/
But thats the issue im trying to make... what about the people that DO want to know some kind of date, and dont flip out on them, and understand when it changes? they should not have to go in the dark because others dont like it.
Thats where the issue seems to be coming from...
there is no perfect "PR" in this case... everyones never going to be happy all at once..
personally id rather have them say nothing till its done then post vague info updates constantly. i get they are trying not to be too specific so no one uses it against them to get upset but seriously.. say something WORTH saying or say nothing at all. IMHO :/
But thats the issue im trying to make... what about the people that DO want to know some kind of date, and dont flip out on them, and understand when it changes? they should not have to go in the dark because others dont like it.
Thats where the issue seems to be coming from...
there is no perfect "PR" in this case... everyones never going to be happy all at once..
true you "cant please everyone" its literally impossible. people find things to QQ about no matter how perfect things are. BUT id like less updates, just more specific ones. im not saying completely ignore the public till its done. just give specific info. we know that at this point in the final stage of development and they already pushed it back they for sure know AT LEAST the 1-2 month time frame its for sure going to be done. the beta isnt going to last 8 months, no game needs that much testing. so instead of "early 2012", say there almost posative its going to be done by march, they say "march-april for sure guys!" so they get extra cushion, and if it releases in march everyone praises them. giving a 6 months timeframe window just angers people. they may as well of said "sometime next year" considering how many ways "early" can be taken. <_<
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
Just got a email from amazon saying the book of cain i ordered on nov 13 is delayed and will not ship till Jan 12. So I have had enough and i cancelled it. When it comes out MAYBE I will buy it. But in all honesty I doubt I will now. Would have been nice to have but not manadatory i have it. And with all these delays and BS floating around It's just to crazy for me.
personally id rather have them say nothing till its done then post vague info updates constantly. i get they are trying not to be too specific so no one uses it against them to get upset but seriously.. say something WORTH saying or say nothing at all. IMHO :/
But thats the issue im trying to make... what about the people that DO want to know some kind of date, and dont flip out on them, and understand when it changes? they should not have to go in the dark because others dont like it.
Thats where the issue seems to be coming from...
there is no perfect "PR" in this case... everyones never going to be happy all at once..
true you "cant please everyone" its literally impossible. people find things to QQ about no matter how perfect things are. BUT id like less updates, just more specific ones. im not saying completely ignore the public till its done. just give specific info. we know that at this point in the final stage of development and they already pushed it back they for sure know AT LEAST the 1-2 month time frame its for sure going to be done. the beta isnt going to last 8 months, no game needs that much testing. so instead of "early 2012", say there almost posative its going to be done by march, they say "march-april for sure guys!" so they get extra cushion, and if it releases in march everyone praises them. giving a 6 months timeframe window just angers people. they may as well of said "sometime next year" considering how many ways "early" can be taken. <_<
But thats the thing, We know thats how blizzard works, we know they need that cushion because they are going to push it back until its the product that they want it to be, the product that we will love and be playing for years on end.
I mean heck, yes I would die for a "yes its xx,xx,20x", But until its going gold, we can never get that from them, because they are ready to push it back if they need to.
So it comes back to, well we can guess until that point, or we can get these windows. At least now, as long as nothing else gets scarped , we know a time frame.
Theres always going to be people though, (as I have a feeling this is going to come out) that thinks pushing a game back due to scarping a feature is a horrible idea.
Im not going to even get into that right now... but we know we like blizzards games...theres a reason for that, id rather them not change =P
and though early may not be that "yes its xx,xx,20x", its a heck of a lot better than "its ready when its ready" Which is the only sure thing.
Just got a email from amazon saying the book of cain i ordered on nov 13 is delayed and will not ship till Jan 12. So I have had enough and i cancelled it. When it comes out MAYBE I will buy it. But in all honesty I doubt I will now. Would have been nice to have but not manadatory i have it. And with all these delays and BS floating around It's just to crazy for me.
wrong thread, delay on book of cain has nothing to do with blizzard, but the Publisher, which has already stated amazon will have it ready to ship by monday, if you didnt already cancle)
I'm sorry OP, but you clearly don't understand one vital and significant reason for all the complaining all the time. The reason is that Blizzard is always misleading us. Everything they have said about the games development has been wrong on almost all occasions. They never give us a clear answer. If they don't know something, why do they always pretend they do and end up being wrong, they should just stfu and give us an clear and concise answer to the development process when they are 100% sure themselves instead of lying to us all the freaking time! This is what makes this long wait soo much more unbearable.
And the rest of us know that its a changing game lose on on inside information? no thanks.
Just because you dont understand that things can change, and that you can't handle it, does not mean the rest of us, that like knowing this kind of information should suffer from not getting it.
Excuse me but that's not what he's saying. At all. Assuming he's too stupid to understand things can change during development is condescending and rude. Maybe you need to re-read his post.
Most of us are upset not because the game is changing and/or being delayed, but because Blizzard is continually pretending to keep us in the loop with misleading, open-ended language. They do not want an informed customer base, yet they keep feeding us information. This requires misdirection on Blizzard's part, and causes a psychological dissonance in certain among us.. we feel engaged and informed, because we get a lot of information, but the information itself is absolutely worthless, ethereal mist that evaporates at the whims of Blizzard PR. In a word, we feel manipulated, because what Blizzard says doesn't match what Blizzard does.
My point is this: Some people get seriously offended by the way Blizzard handles PR. Some of those people are vocal about it, and seek redress of grievances here, on Blizz official forums, and other ways. Other people don't mind and support Blizz. One view point is NO BETTER than the other. If you think your tolerance of Blizzard is in ANY WAY more valid than other people's intolerance of Blizzard, you need to step back and try to see the world through someone else's eyes, cause yours need a rest.
Now, I will say, the OP did have some good points, and he was striking out mainly at people who extrapolate strange paranoid conspiracies from Blizzard vapor-speak. Fair enough. Myself, and many others in this forum, are the type of people who speak out, sometimes passionately, when something is bothering us. I respect people who don't prefer that type of discourse. What I don't respect is when those people try to say it's not a valid conversation, it's pointless to engage in, and those that do are idiots.
Maybe we should have an official sticky "venting" thread or something.
Agree. But I do have to say... I didn't know Blizzard even HAD a PR department?
Look, lets all assume a few facts for this response.
One: Blizzard makes great games - that we will play forever.
Two: We will all be happy when Diablo 3 comes out.
Three: We are customers of Blizzard Entertainment.
Good - got those three. M'kay.
When a company sets expectations that are SoonTM and then go on to announce publicly that they are aiming for a 2011 release, to then feel it completely NECESSARY to officially announce the push back of the game into 2012 - they have to start being liable for some of this negative effect on their customers. They know they've set an expectation, that they have not met and seem to be taking a "sorry, but until is super-duper-polished, we aren't ready" stance.
I'm sure that they are thrilled about the loyalty they see here from some of us - it makes the person who is responsible for the trouble they've caused, to feel better before they start answering the angry masses. Whether they've done a good job to release too much information or a bad job at being way too vague about it - is irrelevant at this point. What they have an opportunity for right now is to do damage control - BECAUSE of their delays - and ultimately attempt to make as many of their customers happy. And that requires them to know that they customers are NOT happy. Which they firmly know (listen to Metzen's voice from Blizzcon this year when he talks about D3) and they know because of forums like this one. They can't maintain the expectation that all their customers just need to settle and wait. They know they've gone awry with this process and the more evasive they are about it - at this point - they more they frustrate their customer base.
When I run damage control for my business - I come at it from two perspectives: what is the truth and what will my customer think is the truth. I immediately move to the side of truth - and set that truth and the new expectations from it. I do this to stop the rage train of their truth becoming so blown out of proportion that they hate my business. They forget that awesome product that I will deliver to them and just go crazy angry. And almost every time I have this situation - I hand them their awesome product - they are thankful and happy to my face, but they will approach me again and again - with the EXPECTATION, that I'm going to lie to them when I tell them a truth.
That's what's happened here. That's what Blizzard has given us for a long time now and its how they will be seen for a long time to come. Think about it (hypothetically) they say in December of 2012 "We are going to release Titan in the second quarter of 2013!!!" Some of us will go "Yippee!" And the rest of us will go "Sure you are...TM"
They are a company that seems to be clearly comfortable with this. Because they know that pesky list at the beginning of this response. They bank on that.
So those of you who defend Blizzard - listen closely. WE AGREE WITH YOU! We just expect more from them and are not getting it.
personally id rather have them say nothing till its done then post vague info updates constantly. i get they are trying not to be too specific so no one uses it against them to get upset but seriously.. say something WORTH saying or say nothing at all. IMHO :/
Vague, how about incorrect info? I am willing to bet they intentionally throw out bad outdated ideas to the community just to give us updates. They have made so many radical changes to D3, that this is about the only thing left that makes sense.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Do you want to get scammed? Perhaps a nice keylogger?
"Just google "diablo 3 gold guide" and magical rainbow covered demons will assault your eyes."
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Official Blizzard Quote:
I can tell you that immediately after the postponement of the game was decided not to speak of the date of issue until we have an exact date and safe to 99.99%. When announcing the release date, you can be confident that it will not be postponed *.
* = Subject to natural disasters, emergencies, unforeseen incidents, problems and so unpredictable.
note: I transalted it, feel free to do your own transaltion
Where do you get june? He said first 'part', and he's talking about the latest forecasts, which would be the Q1 2012 given out by actual blizz.
Just because you dont understand that things can change, and that you can't handle it, does not mean the rest of us, that like knowing this kind of information should suffer from not getting it.
And the one you linked could mean both Q1 or Q2...again nothing.
I think Blizz could have handled PR better but maybe whatever they say will stir complains.
Waiting is frustrating but I can't do anything else, so I'll wait.
Excuse me but that's not what he's saying. At all. Assuming he's too stupid to understand things can change during development is condescending and rude. Maybe you need to re-read his post.
Most of us are upset not because the game is changing and/or being delayed, but because Blizzard is continually pretending to keep us in the loop with misleading, open-ended language. They do not want an informed customer base, yet they keep feeding us information. This requires misdirection on Blizzard's part, and causes a psychological dissonance in certain among us.. we feel engaged and informed, because we get a lot of information, but the information itself is absolutely worthless, ethereal mist that evaporates at the whims of Blizzard PR. In a word, we feel manipulated, because what Blizzard says doesn't match what Blizzard does.
My point is this: Some people get seriously offended by the way Blizzard handles PR. Some of those people are vocal about it, and seek redress of grievances here, on Blizz official forums, and other ways. Other people don't mind and support Blizz. One view point is NO BETTER than the other. If you think your tolerance of Blizzard is in ANY WAY more valid than other people's intolerance of Blizzard, you need to step back and try to see the world through someone else's eyes, cause yours need a rest.
Now, I will say, the OP did have some good points, and he was striking out mainly at people who extrapolate strange paranoid conspiracies from Blizzard vapor-speak. Fair enough. Myself, and many others in this forum, are the type of people who speak out, sometimes passionately, when something is bothering us. I respect people who don't prefer that type of discourse. What I don't respect is when those people try to say it's not a valid conversation, it's pointless to engage in, and those that do are idiots.
Maybe we should have an official sticky "venting" thread or something.
-Thomas Jefferson
D3 first, SC2, then WoW
according to blizzards timeline
Why do people keep trying to use this argument, you "KNOW" blizzard is pretending right? No, you don't. Most companies dont even bother to give half the information blizzard does. Blizzard cares about keep us up to date, and people that seem to not understand things change,
that cause blizzard to give "time frames" instead of dates now.
You know back in the day, blizzard gave exact planed dates, 100% exact to what they were hoping for, but they have to push them back and people would complain over and over about this, so what is the solution? blizzard no longer gives us exact dates until the game is pretty much going gold. And when they try to give "basic ideas" and "thoughts" about a release goal, we STILL get people QQing about everything they can about how they are giving us no information now, and how everything they are saying is to just "keep us happy"...
ps: you should reread the guy's post I replied to, as I understood it.
Keep believing that Blizzard is so great for "graciously" providing us such a priceless wealth of "information." For a large group of customers, their "information" is anything but informative; it's frustrating, misleading, and un-necessary. In my experience, this kind of continual, intentionally vague, vapor-speak is intended to keep an immature, un-empowered customer base ignorant but engaged. I've worked in software a long time, as a technical marketing engineer, test engineer, development engineer, and in sales. There isn't any paranoia at work. They are literally not allowed to say anything of substance without going through a serious approval chain (just read a day in the life of Bashiok).
I find it particularly cynical your opinion that corporations are impervious from any criticism or accountability to their paying customers. If Blizzard is going to engage their customers by announcing a game 4 years in advance, they have a responsibility to effectively inform their customers, or else their customers are going to get pissed off... which is exactly what happened. Why is this such a travesty to you?
Where there's smoke, there's fire. Where there's a ton of pissed off customers, there is a company that needs to improve their marketing and PR. In my opinion, most people don't think that highly of Blizzard as a company, they only think highly of Blizzard games. That's a fairly fragile brand loyalty.
Now you might argue that in order for them to keep making great games, they will always have to alienate their "impatient" customer base. That could not be farther from the truth. Again, how cynical do you have to be to believe that Blizzard can't have both great PR AND great games?
It's a good point to bring up, that people holding Blizzard accountable to their release dates is what caused Blizzard to STOP giving release dates. But don't be naiive. The PROBLEM was Blizzard missing release dates because
they suck at project managementthey don't value discrete project management deadlines like most other companies do.. The problem was NEVER the customer, because all we ever did was hold Blizzard accountable to their own word. Guess that's a giant inconvenience to them.The conversation goes roughly like this:
Us: "Hey Blizzard, you said the game was gonna be released <date1>. Now you're just gonna push release to <date2>? How can I trust you now?"
(2 weeks later)
Blizzard: "Trust us. Oh, btw, we're gonna miss <date2>, it's <date3> now. Aren't you glad I communicate with you so much? You should be thankful!"
Us: "Why? Some companies announce a game is in development, give concrete dates, meet those dates."
Blizzard: "Because we give you waaaay more information than those companies, and we make better games than them."
Us: "Well, you do make better games. But maybe I don't need information if it's not accurate, reliable, or even really saying anything we didn't already know..."
Blizzard: "But we really want to engage our fans, we love you guys!"
Us: "Cool. Well in that case, I have a few questions. How far along are you guys in development? What's going well? What's not? How's testing going?"
(2 weeks later)
Blizzard: "We're making design decisions and polishing the game, it's looking great. We're in the home stretch."
Us: "um.. you MUST be aware that you didn't answer the question at all."
(2 weeks later)
Blizzard: "Well runestones are pretty weird, it's possible we've made a decision about runestones now. We're in the home stretch of runestone decision making."
Us: "You guys are re-writing runestones? Ok. Well, what's the verdict?"
Blizzard: "We have several solutions and we're polishing things up, it's looking great and we're really close. Home stretch."
Us: "So, hey how about a release date? I mean, we know you are very protective of quality, but you MUST have internal deadlines, right? C'mon, gimme a little something.. you love me, remember?"
(2 weeks later)
Blizzard: "Early 2012."
Us: "What does that mean? Q1? First two months? First half? Jan 17th? wtf?"
Blizzard: "It means we pushed release back to 2012"
Us: "Ok that's actually MORE vague than 'early 2012', which is an amazing achievement in vagueness."
Blizzard fanboy: "Wow dude, stop being such an entitled, whiny little bitch. You should be kissing Blizzard's hairy beanbag just for talking to you at all."
I could keep going.
I tried to understand your point of view, I just can't extract your opinion out of his words.
-Thomas Jefferson
Dolaiim - I love you. +1
Monkalicious: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/OptimusPrime-12194/hero/79139477
(not sarcasm)
HOLY SHIT EPICNESS +9000
you may state your opinions in an holier then thou attitude (no offense) but your absolutely right. EVERY blizzard post about game info is the most vague bull shit of all time. i have a high tolerance for BS so i didnt care much but it truly is rude of them to fuck with their customer base like that when all we do is hang on every word they say. blizzard is like that ass hole boy friend who constantly plays their GF(s) and all they do is worship the ground they walk on. blizzard needs to STFU or give specifics. the last 8 "announcements" by blizzard just angered me and gave no new information <_<
blizzard should be in politics. *ba dum tss
EDIT: although molster is by far my favorite mod... :/
Your 100% making things up (aka saying they are "pretending") You have no way of knowing this, you are 100% making something up because it benefits your point of view. Its that simple, and something thats very tiring to see.
Im going to focus on your part about
But then you go on to say.
(in reply to what I said about no longer giving us dates)
First, you have to think of the company they are, what they have done, and what they like to do.
We know they are a company of people who like to release games once they find them perfect, once they have made something that they can go back and say "yep, we are proud as hell of this product".
We do not see that kind of dedication much. This is a company that threw out a full game due to it not meeting their marks of something they could be proud of.
So lets move on to your point, about "bad project management". I know you were most likely referring to being able to set clear and accurate timeframes. But heres where you either have a positive view and believe, or dont. They have said their timeframes were indeed accurate for the product they were working on. But unlike other devs, if they find out, as they are working on a system, if it does not make the game fantastic in the way they saw it, they scrap it and change it. And you know what, THIS right there, is why there games are so amazing, and why so many people like them. They will take the time and do that, and to totally redesign the game from the point, to make it that golden product that we love.
People knew this about them. Blizzard would give out a date, a date they could meet if something like this was not found, but they did find something, and thus, they had to push their date back. People get mad, they dont take the time and try to understand that, hey, we love their games, they know how to make games. No, they think "They have horrible project management". when thats not the case at all, and THIS is why they stopped giving us dates, because they are not able to change the way they make games, and the day they do, is the day we wont even like the end product anymore.
But lets move to the PR section, where I do see a lot of legitimate issues with, but at the same time, they still do more than most.
Honestly, I feel this part is 100% based on different peoples feelings. They no longer want to give an exact date... theres nothting wrong with that, at least they are given us a time frame for those of us who care..
If they just shut up and give no date, and dont even say they are working on it, until its done, there would be no more threads complaining about it... but... is that really how you want it done? if so...why? The game will still "be done when its done". But at least this way, we get some idea of what they are thinking of for a release date, and ill take that.
There are some areas there PR can work on yes... but I dont think their release dates is one of them.
personally id rather have them say nothing till its done then post vague info updates constantly. i get they are trying not to be too specific so no one uses it against them to get upset but seriously.. say something WORTH saying or say nothing at all. IMHO :/
Thats where the issue seems to be coming from...
there is no perfect "PR" in this case... everyones never going to be happy all at once..
true you "cant please everyone" its literally impossible. people find things to QQ about no matter how perfect things are. BUT id like less updates, just more specific ones. im not saying completely ignore the public till its done. just give specific info. we know that at this point in the final stage of development and they already pushed it back they for sure know AT LEAST the 1-2 month time frame its for sure going to be done. the beta isnt going to last 8 months, no game needs that much testing. so instead of "early 2012", say there almost posative its going to be done by march, they say "march-april for sure guys!" so they get extra cushion, and if it releases in march everyone praises them. giving a 6 months timeframe window just angers people. they may as well of said "sometime next year" considering how many ways "early" can be taken. <_<
But thats the thing, We know thats how blizzard works, we know they need that cushion because they are going to push it back until its the product that they want it to be, the product that we will love and be playing for years on end.
I mean heck, yes I would die for a "yes its xx,xx,20x", But until its going gold, we can never get that from them, because they are ready to push it back if they need to.
So it comes back to, well we can guess until that point, or we can get these windows. At least now, as long as nothing else gets scarped , we know a time frame.
Theres always going to be people though, (as I have a feeling this is going to come out) that thinks pushing a game back due to scarping a feature is a horrible idea.
Im not going to even get into that right now... but we know we like blizzards games...theres a reason for that, id rather them not change =P
and though early may not be that "yes its xx,xx,20x", its a heck of a lot better than "its ready when its ready" Which is the only sure thing.
wrong thread, delay on book of cain has nothing to do with blizzard, but the Publisher, which has already stated amazon will have it ready to ship by monday, if you didnt already cancle)
Agree. But I do have to say... I didn't know Blizzard even HAD a PR department?
One: Blizzard makes great games - that we will play forever.
Two: We will all be happy when Diablo 3 comes out.
Three: We are customers of Blizzard Entertainment.
Good - got those three. M'kay.
When a company sets expectations that are SoonTM and then go on to announce publicly that they are aiming for a 2011 release, to then feel it completely NECESSARY to officially announce the push back of the game into 2012 - they have to start being liable for some of this negative effect on their customers. They know they've set an expectation, that they have not met and seem to be taking a "sorry, but until is super-duper-polished, we aren't ready" stance.
I'm sure that they are thrilled about the loyalty they see here from some of us - it makes the person who is responsible for the trouble they've caused, to feel better before they start answering the angry masses. Whether they've done a good job to release too much information or a bad job at being way too vague about it - is irrelevant at this point. What they have an opportunity for right now is to do damage control - BECAUSE of their delays - and ultimately attempt to make as many of their customers happy. And that requires them to know that they customers are NOT happy. Which they firmly know (listen to Metzen's voice from Blizzcon this year when he talks about D3) and they know because of forums like this one. They can't maintain the expectation that all their customers just need to settle and wait. They know they've gone awry with this process and the more evasive they are about it - at this point - they more they frustrate their customer base.
When I run damage control for my business - I come at it from two perspectives: what is the truth and what will my customer think is the truth. I immediately move to the side of truth - and set that truth and the new expectations from it. I do this to stop the rage train of their truth becoming so blown out of proportion that they hate my business. They forget that awesome product that I will deliver to them and just go crazy angry. And almost every time I have this situation - I hand them their awesome product - they are thankful and happy to my face, but they will approach me again and again - with the EXPECTATION, that I'm going to lie to them when I tell them a truth.
That's what's happened here. That's what Blizzard has given us for a long time now and its how they will be seen for a long time to come. Think about it (hypothetically) they say in December of 2012 "We are going to release Titan in the second quarter of 2013!!!" Some of us will go "Yippee!" And the rest of us will go "Sure you are...TM"
They are a company that seems to be clearly comfortable with this. Because they know that pesky list at the beginning of this response. They bank on that.
So those of you who defend Blizzard - listen closely. WE AGREE WITH YOU! We just expect more from them and are not getting it.
Monkalicious: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/OptimusPrime-12194/hero/79139477
Vague, how about incorrect info? I am willing to bet they intentionally throw out bad outdated ideas to the community just to give us updates. They have made so many radical changes to D3, that this is about the only thing left that makes sense.
"Just google "diablo 3 gold guide" and magical rainbow covered demons will assault your eyes."