My biggest concern out of all of this is all the studios Blizzard veterans have created over the past few years. Maybe this decline in Blizzard that we've seen over the past 5 years (I know some feel its much longer than this, you're welcome to your opinions) involved a lot of what we've been reading and was a big prompt in them deciding to leave. In a world that has has rightfully started to tolerate this bullshit less, it may be that they were all good people that weren't participating in the alleged atrocities trying to get away from it and to use their experience in creating games in a better environment. We can't know that for sure though.
I sincerely hope they were all a part of the positive forces and in their new environments they will ensure that kind of harassment isn't ever going to be tolerated. It will certainly be easier if they all remain smaller studios, the more moving parts involved the more chance for problems to go unchecked, and being a new company in this age lets them start out with a better overall social outlook, or at least that's what I like to think.
I also hope Blizzard can reinvent itself. Get rid of all the gross people and get back to making good games and creating a good relationship with your communities.
Dean did his AMA this week after the news came out about the lawsuit and even commented on it.
Quote From blizzard
I haven't looked into it much, but from what I did read it sounds horrifying. I hope whatever truth comes out of it lands as harshly as possible on those responsible. In 10 years I've been here, I've honestly thought of Blizzard as the most open and inclusive place there is. (Source)
While I can't say that says for sure he'll do one next week, I hope that he feels like he can still speak with the community. I know the community would appreciate it, though it ultimately is a ball that is in Blizzard or Dean's court.
While they are indeed only allegations as no trial has actually taken place, I do think it is important to remember the state of California would not being bringing them to court unless they had a damn good case against the company. Also, the statement Blizzard made is the default stance they have to publicly take when they are going to be trying to defend themselves. The company itself may not have committed the actions, but they facilitated the harassment so remain at fault for the actions of the employees that were doing no good.
Its one thing for me to fire up a lawsuit against someone and get it taken to a court where they ultimately defend themselves because my suit was frivolous, but its another thing for an entity like a state to feel confident enough to go to war with Activision Blizzard. You know ATVI has some serious lawyers that can get them out of plenty of situations, so the confidence must be overwhelming that they know they can win.
And if they do end up losing against Blizz, we can only hope that some real change comes from it all since these stories have been made public and has encouraged others to speak about their time at the company.
It hasn't been much of a secret though that this has been happening at the company, and others in the gaming space, so those jumping on the shame Blizzard train aren't really doing so immediately. I think its important to state your dissatisfaction with the company as a whole, and if that means people don't want to play or buy their products then they are entitled to do so. No one should be targeting any individual person though, at least not until a court finds that person guilty.
I'll add in that while I don't know if any of those folks in charge of that place necessarily agree with Blizzard's corporate take on the lawsuit, I do know for a fact that none of them care at all about anything that goes on their sites as long as they still bring in revenue. Until they see a drop in revenue, they wouldn't bother moderating negativity.
And not caring about stuff until it hurts the bank is just as fucking gross.
See, I didn't even have to name drop and someone immediately knew who was the dumpster fire!
So fucking gross. And to think that the people that own the company that owns the site, I used to work for. Though, these are the same people that said we shouldn't spotlight content from IGN because they didn't like the site "but if we really need to then make their link back to the content not obvious or really small". Well, not that they even really own the site anymore since they've started the process in selling it off to Mobafire for that sweet multi-million dollar cash-in. Good to see Mobafire is acquiring more toxic nonsense.
Blizzard is under heat right now and anything they post is going to be filled with negative comments.
If I were to tweet something negative at the Hearthstone Twitter account right now, not many would see it. That changes if they make a fresh tweet and a large amount of people respond to it.
When you interact with the tweet, you're going to see replies and those replies have a very high chance of being critical of the company and not "on topic". That makes the reveals for them somewhat pointless.
However, I don't see this as damage control. It might be, higher ups may have put a freeze on everything to do damage control, I like to think its good folks that are there protesting internally against the bad - an act that shows they stand with their coworkers against the abuse. We'll never know for certain the exact reasoning behind it, but I do like to try and see good before the bad.
You just gotta love your USB going haywire so your keyboard won't work until a reboot, and then your reboot has Windows updates pending. Only determined it was a USB controller issue and not the keyboard itself because the same thing happened when I put another keyboard in.
I cannot wait for AMD to drop their AM5 platform. I'd love to upgrade to that and ditch this disaster that x299 has been. I can't even overclock my processor because it causes my CPU to fail Intel's math test. Not to mention the incredibly stupid design that causes your ethernet chipset to get wacky on overclocks, a problem I've only had on x299, which causes a loss of performance.
RANT OVER. More reveals in 10!
Also while I may own the site, this is definitely our community.
Did we really want to see Druids with a win the game questline? lol. They're annoying enough as is and I'm not looking forward to the armor potential here.
Your boss would definitely be asking questions about why there are so many anime girls on your screen in... less than protective gear. Not much of it on the page itself, but if you go to the homepage, rip job.
Yeah, I delayed the release of the article because I didn't want it to cut into the fresh reveal schedule. Kinda annoying they started reveals on the same day as a content drop =/
I'll always be an honest and blunt person when I'm allowed to be. Luckily, I'm allowed to be on this platform.
My biggest concern out of all of this is all the studios Blizzard veterans have created over the past few years. Maybe this decline in Blizzard that we've seen over the past 5 years (I know some feel its much longer than this, you're welcome to your opinions) involved a lot of what we've been reading and was a big prompt in them deciding to leave. In a world that has has rightfully started to tolerate this bullshit less, it may be that they were all good people that weren't participating in the alleged atrocities trying to get away from it and to use their experience in creating games in a better environment. We can't know that for sure though.
I sincerely hope they were all a part of the positive forces and in their new environments they will ensure that kind of harassment isn't ever going to be tolerated. It will certainly be easier if they all remain smaller studios, the more moving parts involved the more chance for problems to go unchecked, and being a new company in this age lets them start out with a better overall social outlook, or at least that's what I like to think.
I also hope Blizzard can reinvent itself. Get rid of all the gross people and get back to making good games and creating a good relationship with your communities.
Dean did his AMA this week after the news came out about the lawsuit and even commented on it.
While I can't say that says for sure he'll do one next week, I hope that he feels like he can still speak with the community. I know the community would appreciate it, though it ultimately is a ball that is in Blizzard or Dean's court.
While they are indeed only allegations as no trial has actually taken place, I do think it is important to remember the state of California would not being bringing them to court unless they had a damn good case against the company. Also, the statement Blizzard made is the default stance they have to publicly take when they are going to be trying to defend themselves. The company itself may not have committed the actions, but they facilitated the harassment so remain at fault for the actions of the employees that were doing no good.
Its one thing for me to fire up a lawsuit against someone and get it taken to a court where they ultimately defend themselves because my suit was frivolous, but its another thing for an entity like a state to feel confident enough to go to war with Activision Blizzard. You know ATVI has some serious lawyers that can get them out of plenty of situations, so the confidence must be overwhelming that they know they can win.
And if they do end up losing against Blizz, we can only hope that some real change comes from it all since these stories have been made public and has encouraged others to speak about their time at the company.
It hasn't been much of a secret though that this has been happening at the company, and others in the gaming space, so those jumping on the shame Blizzard train aren't really doing so immediately. I think its important to state your dissatisfaction with the company as a whole, and if that means people don't want to play or buy their products then they are entitled to do so. No one should be targeting any individual person though, at least not until a court finds that person guilty.
I'll add in that while I don't know if any of those folks in charge of that place necessarily agree with Blizzard's corporate take on the lawsuit, I do know for a fact that none of them care at all about anything that goes on their sites as long as they still bring in revenue. Until they see a drop in revenue, they wouldn't bother moderating negativity.
And not caring about stuff until it hurts the bank is just as fucking gross.
See, I didn't even have to name drop and someone immediately knew who was the dumpster fire!
So fucking gross. And to think that the people that own the company that owns the site, I used to work for. Though, these are the same people that said we shouldn't spotlight content from IGN because they didn't like the site "but if we really need to then make their link back to the content not obvious or really small". Well, not that they even really own the site anymore since they've started the process in selling it off to Mobafire for that sweet multi-million dollar cash-in. Good to see Mobafire is acquiring more toxic nonsense.
Blizzard is under heat right now and anything they post is going to be filled with negative comments.
If I were to tweet something negative at the Hearthstone Twitter account right now, not many would see it. That changes if they make a fresh tweet and a large amount of people respond to it.
When you interact with the tweet, you're going to see replies and those replies have a very high chance of being critical of the company and not "on topic". That makes the reveals for them somewhat pointless.
However, I don't see this as damage control. It might be, higher ups may have put a freeze on everything to do damage control, I like to think its good folks that are there protesting internally against the bad - an act that shows they stand with their coworkers against the abuse. We'll never know for certain the exact reasoning behind it, but I do like to try and see good before the bad.
<3 I know!
You just gotta love your USB going haywire so your keyboard won't work until a reboot, and then your reboot has Windows updates pending. Only determined it was a USB controller issue and not the keyboard itself because the same thing happened when I put another keyboard in.
I cannot wait for AMD to drop their AM5 platform. I'd love to upgrade to that and ditch this disaster that x299 has been. I can't even overclock my processor because it causes my CPU to fail Intel's math test. Not to mention the incredibly stupid design that causes your ethernet chipset to get wacky on overclocks, a problem I've only had on x299, which causes a loss of performance.
RANT OVER. More reveals in 10!
Also while I may own the site, this is definitely our community.
Did we really want to see Druids with a win the game questline? lol. They're annoying enough as is and I'm not looking forward to the armor potential here.
FYI Updated card names
Feral Friendsy & Guff the Tough
We'll have updated images when Blizzard provides official ones. But at least we can groan about how many facepalms Feral Friendsy generates.
Worst time to be having computer problems. I swear this thing is going to murder me in my sleep.
Your boss would definitely be asking questions about why there are so many anime girls on your screen in... less than protective gear. Not much of it on the page itself, but if you go to the homepage, rip job.
Done
Yeah, I delayed the release of the article because I didn't want it to cut into the fresh reveal schedule. Kinda annoying they started reveals on the same day as a content drop =/
Weapon removal not that big of a deal - just trigger the Deathrattle on your turn and you can immediately swing with it.
Alright, United in Stormwind is OFFICIALLY the best Hearthstone expansion that has ever been created and will be created.
Someone downvoted you, they must be from Online-Station
Sorry for the site downtime during the card reveal which prevented us from getting it up sooner. It shouldn't happen again.
First time getting a card reveal, important to milk the viewership for as long as possible =D
Quest Hunter will make a return, it's just going to be called Questline Hunter instead :D