This is something that Krones already commented. More than a week ago I reported in a note that Furor seems to have some control over the implementation of the battlegrounds. This because I spotted one of his posts on the FOH’s forums where he was commenting in detail some of the encounters in the Alterac battlegrounds. If you follow the link you’ll see that now the thread is gone. For reference there wasn’t anything amazing to read. He was interested to comment and receive feedback about the mechanics and the fine-tuning of the scripts. Nothing related to the overall ruleset that I criticized along these months.

All this makes sense. We know that Alex Afrasiabi (Furor) is in the “quest team” and in fact what he was commenting was the fine-tuning of the encounters and the practical details of the implementation of the battlegrounds. He said that he was on vacation for a few days and that he was spending all that time on the test server to understand and fix the problems. This is why he asked for feedback and why he tried to encourage a discussion.

At this point my remark was echoed by AFKGamer and a few hours later I noticed both him and myself quoted in a locked thread on a WoW’s forum screaming for scandal and drama. Now I do not know Foton’s opinion exactly and I probably don’t share it. But I simply hate when what I write is used against its purpose and this is indeed a case.

There’s NOTHING wrong if Furor, or any other developer, comes out to discuss something. There’s NOTHING wrong even if he chooses whatever forum he likes. If at this point Blizzard called him back they just did a big mistake coming from a clueless management that knows zero about this genre. This is one of those issues where the community MUST BE NOT seconded. This is a side effect of an already horrible process of communication that is not going to be solved this way. Furor posting on some ‘elected’ board doesn’t solve this problem either but it’s already a step. A positive step. Everyone should feel free to write and discuss about what he fucking wants and where he fucking chooses. And without the needs to hide under pseudonyms. It’s ridiculous. From my point of view the more open someone is, the better but this is not something you can *impose*. You cannot impose a developer to not discuss with anyone an important part of the game because that’s THE CORE process of what he should do. That’s what his fucking work is about. Without communication the design of a game DOESN’T EXIST. This is why these games are fucking broken, because there’s no communication between those who have some powers, so it’s everything fucked up because the games are run by idiots. Design is communication before anything else, it is the ability to listen, to understand, to observe and question what happens. Without a DIRECT communication with the community (with no fucking filters) a designer is impaired. He will NEVER go anywhere. He will have only the possibility to fail simply because he is missing a basic requirement. But since this is a personal level it’s also not possible to enforce the devs to have a specific types of communication. All this should come from a deliberate choice of the developer himself, not from an imposition. This is why it’s good if the developer is going to post on a board where he feels more comfortable or where he thinks he will find valuable feedback, or if he has a blog or whatever. It’s a fucking choice that cannot be enforced in either way.

You cannot force a developer to speak as you cannot force him to shut up. This must be a personal choice. The choice to open up the communication because the principle is felt positive. If this process doesn’t comes out naturally, it’s fucked up, okay?

This is why if I can put someone in trouble, I will. I will point out what the devs say, I will criticize it harshly, I’ll bring attacks, I’ll point the flaws and I’ll call them names. This just to demonstrate the opposite: there’s nothing to fear. But really. There’s nothing to fear. You can do this because the flames are the natural “meat” that is useful for the discussion and for the game. It’s exactly when there is nothing to fear that the communication is useful and open without being hindered. That’s my principle. Come out because it is useful and because the world isn’t falling. Instead it will be useful for everyone. I’ll punch you in the face over and over and over to demonstrate that I’m totally harmless. And that you can listen to me in the measure you consider it useful.

And this bring to the last point (because I don’t want to keep writing endlessly about every detail, I’m tired). The community managers in WoW are doing more damage than anything. Not because they do not do how to do their work but simply because they are put in the condition to not be helpful. A community manager, listen carefully, should never REPLACE the communication between devs and the community. They should INTEGRATE it. If a community manager is considered a “filter” we have already a fucked up model. With a filter the communication CANNOT exist (understood Mythic and Pendragon closed forums?). In WoW the community managers have no powers and do not know anything more than the average players. This doesn’t work. What happened recently is the direct demonstration of both problems. The first is that the communication between the developers and the community is fucked up, ther second is that even the communication within Blizzard is fucked up.

And the responsibility here is just about a clueless managment. Which is why I feel talking to a wall more than usual.