01/13/2016 03:46 PMPosted by
Mand I mean, you go on to reference this interview and claim we're being unreasonable. Is that really justified?
The way I read it, Ben was talking design philosophy, and when he used the word 'overwhelming', he was talking mostly about new players, and how unpleasant it can be to deal with some UI elements that seem like a good idea at the time. Some members of the community at large read that as "He thinks we're dumb." I know for a fact that was never the thought process.
Bottom line, though? The initial philosophy on deck slots was wrong, and that philosophy has evolved since then.
01/13/2016 03:46 PMPosted by
Mand Can't you understand, when faced with this, why a simple page turn doesn't seem like such a daunting technical or psychological challenge?
It wasn't about capability, or figuring out how to work the feature. It was more a matter of emotions and feeling, to make Hearthstone welcoming and try to correct for human nature. It's easy for any game with a collection management aspect to become a cluttered mess, and that was what the devs were hoping to avoid.
The concern was what they were seeing regarding collection and deck management in other games, and the initial reactions we got from players in the first year of the game. It gets ugly and messy very quickly. It can turn players into hoarders, holding onto old stuff that they haven't used in months, or even years. It can create an unpleasant feeling when you return to find an 'inventory' full of stuff that's no longer relevant, and "cleaning it up" isn't fun. It becomes a chore that makes a player more inclined to just close a game instead of dealing with it. I'm sure that I'm not thinking of everything, but listing all of it isn't material.
Now the team is moving forward, and doing their best to get it right.
01/13/2016 03:52 PMPosted by
TK421 So, he never really address why you don't communicate with us on a regular basis.
He did, though it boils down to this: We tend to talk a lot less when we're not ready to talk about upcoming features, until they're close to being finished and we can be confident that we're not announcing something too early, or talking about a feature that'll end up getting canned for one reason or another.
01/13/2016 11:21 PMPosted by
CobraA1 But - when the pace is years, I have to wonder if there isn't a bit of "letting perfect become the enemy of good" going on.
An excellent point, and something Blizzard wrangles with as an entity all the time.
I have to say that I don't think we've hit that point yet, though. The addition of more deck slots is one of those pivotal things that can have a surprisingly significant impact on the game if it’s not handled carefully.
You are not part of the Hearthstone development team. Claiming you are by saying "we" is insulting our intelligence as players. You claim to know we are smart then explect us to believe you are part of the development team and share their beliefs. We know that is not true. We players are not this stupid.
"We" was just a convenient shorthand to refer to the Hearthstone team and its intentions, and it's easy to slip into using it. The Community team sits with and talks with the Dev team every day, attends regular meetings with them, etc.
We're integrated in most ways, so it's easy to think of the whole team as a single unit. Apologies for the misunderstanding, as I never intend to present myself as a Developer.