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Concern that Boards also marked a shift in Riot Communication

phyerbert·10/17/2014, 3:53:34 PM·42 votes·3,793 views

POST WORLD'S EDIT So Morello's been busy on here. He, and a few others (stashu) have really been willing to engage on the upcoming changes. High regards to Morello for his participation on the Cass thread, he got torn to shreds by an angry mob, downvoted to oblivion regardless of what he said, and put forth some very sensible discussion. Morello if you ever read this, I hold you in high esteem for your attitude and patience with this community. We bear our teeth a lot and you calmly endure. With that said, I've still seen no content from ManWolfAxeBoss and one of the biggest problems is that it's hard to know where to even look. While it seems so far that TT and CS are not getting as many changes as SR, a lot of season changes are going to affect these modes. New items especially, and there's just no good venue to discuss these changes with each other, let alone with a red.

There has been a lot of talk about the new system, and I wanted to reserve judgement and even give the benefit of the doubt to the new system. And my concern is less about how the boards function, and more about their purpose. I have felt like the boards have been accompanied by a general quieting of the main development voices of riot. I ran through the red tracker for 21 days and well there has been a TON of red posts. Most of them are friendly small talk and compliments on posts. Which I love. But here's my concern.

Dominion and TT used to have their own space, and though we didn't get a ton of red posts, ManWolfAxeBoss was there, had a couple sticky threads, and would pop in and ask for feedback or at least acknowledge our questions. So while most of both communities had a lot of complaints about how they were treated by riot on the whole, they had one person who helped out and made them feel heard.

In the past 21 days MWAB has posted once, acknowledging a bug report. Morello has not posted on the boards at all in that time period.

Now I've never expected this out of a company, in all my life I've never talked to Nintendo about their games and balance or concerns with gameplay. Or any other company. But Riot had seemed to commit to trying to talk with their community and I must admit it's grown on me. Seeing players contribute to ideas alongside the company even when only one idea in 10 000 would be let through, which is fine. We've got all kind of hair brained ideas that don't factor in all the consequences...

It just feels like you used to say 'no', and now you don't say anything at all.

So while I assume there's no official policy or conspiracy to be more silent on the boards than the forums were, (and if there are please don't send Sion through my living room wall to silence me), I would like to hear this concern addressed, can there again be a way for us to communicate with devs and have our communications acknowledged?

47 Comments

Daen10/17/2014, 4:24:51 PM20 votes

I have definitely noticed this, yes. It's not just gameplay developers; a lot of teams have gone quiet. This happens to include the Boards team; I know they are super busy, and that's likely the main contributing factor to all the silence you're seeing (plus, no more LyteSmyte).

I'm assuming it has something to do with Worlds and/or the preseason, but I can't help but wonder why it seems like almost everyone has gotten so hushed.

It just feels like you used to say 'no', and now you don't say anything at all.

This is a pretty powerful statement.

Sir ArmaMalum10/17/2014, 3:57:58 PM7 votes

From my understanding a possible reason for the lessening in major dev talk is the division of mediums. In other words they may on Leddit, Twitter or elsewhere more than the Boards. I've been told that Rioters have no set "quota" or mandatory medium to use so they just gravitate to any mediums they prefer. I know ZenontheStoic, for example, gave a decent bit of tentative info on the WW re-work he's tinkering with via twitter.

Obviously I'm no red so I can't speak for them, so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. Great post though, +1.

Veraska10/17/2014, 4:19:54 PM5 votes

morello commented on this awhile back while GD was still active. he was asked why game designers and the balance team don't talk as much as other reds and his response was basically "GD scared them all away" and then went on this talk about how riot has to enforce better moderation but the playerbase has to learn to give informative feedback. i think you won't see dev talk on the forums for awhile.

this is all from my memory tho so i can DEFINITELY be wrong here.

MajorPain910/17/2014, 6:51:44 PM4 votes

Boards so bad, even Reds don't want to use them.

lawl

Pryotra10/18/2014, 4:15:59 PM4 votes

Honestly, it has feels they have drifted into a Blizzard-esque company. They don't really communicate on the level they had in seasons previous. It's their game, and they have shown that they no longer want feedback and would rather just do things their way. Which is entirely their perogative, but it loses a serious amount of personal investment and attachment I once felt. As an S1 player, this is no longer the company who created the game I enjoy; it's just the current owners.

If they wanted to communicate, why force the entire community onto forums that everyone, including the boards team, agreed was still a beta product that had a large quantity of issues of all levels of magnitude, effectively pigeonholing the community into a format of communicating that Rioters seem reluctant to use? Answer is that they wanted to. I've seen their logic, and that was what it oiled down to. They no longer felt like honoring their previous promise, nor did they want to honor the fact that the Boards weren't a finished product.

That is only one example, and if you want another, just look around. Lore, Reworks, Pricing, you name it and I can name a broken promise from them. They really no longer have any care about their word, and will happily trade in on it for some cash or publicity or even to combat something they don't like, for example negative feedback. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out, and their actions have spoken quite clearly.

It really doesn't bother me much anymore, when I look at it from that perspective. It is their game, if they wanted to do something with it they do have the right. I just wish they would realize that they have cashed in on their trust, as with all these broken promises it becomes nigh on impossible to take their word with any sort of face value, instead of childishly assuming that they will be believed and treated with respect when they oh so clearly traded it for some quick grab. They want their cake, and they want to eat it too. Unfortunately for them, they only own the game, not their fans nor their opinions.

Drukyul10/17/2014, 5:03:16 PM3 votes

They've always had periods of just not saying anything. It's nothing new.

Jivvie10/17/2014, 7:42:12 PM3 votes

I applaud for your wall of text but I'd rather play Devil's Advocate. I could care less for the bug reports. As long as it gets fixed timely and they are aware of it. Only when they stop caring when I will seek other games. And speaking of that, there are other games. You don't pay a dime for League. All you do is waste time playing it. Valuable time you can use to do something else. They don't owe us anything. They don't HAVE to fix anything nor report when it has been fixed. They do it because they feel the need to.

I see a lot of bitching about what Riot doing and not enough complaining about how cancer the General Discussion was nor how terrible the community is as a whole. Were you that bored to write this? lol. Read a book. Go outside.

Urdnot Entar10/17/2014, 4:49:25 PM2 votes

They never used to talk much about bugs, or really listen to the community about most other (important) things, so...

Drukyul10/17/2014, 5:19:42 PM2 votes

I'm sure there are a ton of viable solutions. As long as Riot actually posts to something, it'll be better than what's been going on for years.

DRAGON BALL YIII10/18/2014, 3:49:27 PM2 votes

I'm of the opinion they intentionally ruined the forums in order to get people to stop posting and complaining about their sub-par service. Constant server problem, ridiculous banning systems, etc. They just didn't want to here entirely justified criticisms anymore.

A TrollPole Main10/18/2014, 12:41:42 AM1 votes

but sion doesn't have a silence maybe garren though

ImpendingDeath10/18/2014, 5:06:55 PM1 votes

Riot wanted new boards to reflect the updates that they've been putting into a lot of things. If it happens to marginalize the TT and Dominion communities at the same time, then that's two birds with one stone.