Jay Apologizes
Posted 23 August 2012 by NizarisAfter the drama of recent days that followed our interview, Jay has issued an official apology. He goes on to address more than the issue at hand, but the state of the game as a whole. Unprofessional comment aside, there’s still a ways to go with Diablo III and it seems that recent progress for the game and for the team is ongoing.
As a personal opinion on the piece, I’m struck with the frank and humble tone he takes in his assessment of his moment of indiscretion and the state of the game itself. What many people have been asking revolves around “open and honest communications” with the community about the state of the game, and as a passionate community, it is with the greatest hope that such transparency continues.
What I said was expressed out of anger, and in defense of my team and the game. People can say what they want about me, but I don’t take lightly when they disparage the commitment and passion of the Diablo III team. Dave is awesome. In Diablo and Diablo II, he made two of the games that have most affected me as a developer. I respect his vision for Diablo, but just like he said in his interview, the Diablo III team must drive a vision for the game that is true to us. We believe in Diablo and have stuck by it through years of hard development to make it a reality.
The foundation of the Diablo team was built from the remnants of Blizzard North: Our lead programmer, who built the basis of the Diablo III engine while at Blizzard North; our lead tech artist, who drove much of the combat visuals, FX, and skill direction of our classes and is one of the most avid Diablo II players you can find; our lead concept artist, who helped establish the core look of the game; Wyatt Cheng, our senior technical game designer, who writes many of our blogs and works tirelessly on the live game. All these people and many others made the commitment to Diablo even after Blizzard North shut down. It was hard for me to see their contributions be diminished by someone they worked alongside, and even harder for me not to try to jump to their defense. I only wish I’d done so in a more professional manner.
Joining the Diablo team was a dream come true for me. In my house, the name Diablo was always spoken in hushed tones. It meant late nights that turned into early mornings, moments of pure adrenaline and pure joy. It meant countless conversations, debates, scouring websites for good builds, and more than one or two sick days. 
When Diablo II was released, I took a week off work and sent my wife out of state… and she was pregnant at the time! I played Diablo II with my dad during one of the most difficult times of his life, and the experience brought me closer to him, and I hope helped him through it. I joined the Diablo team because the idea of a world without more Diablo seemed like a pretty crappy world to me. I wasn’t sure if I’d be good enough. I’m still not sure. But I felt I had to try.
Regardless of how I’ve done, my team has been more than good enough, and I’m proud of the game we made together. We believe it’s a great game. But Diablo III has flaws. It is not perfect. Sales mean nothing if the game doesn’t live on in all of our hearts, and standing by our games is what Blizzard does. Patch 1.0.4 is a step in the right direction, but we have no illusions that our work is done.
Playing Diablo III needs to be a rewarding experience. The new legendaries are a big step in the right direction, as are tweaks to item drop rates. But I’m not convinced that we’ve gone far enough. If you don’t have that great feeling of a good drop being right around the corner — and the burst of excitement when it finally arrives — then we haven’t done our jobs right. Out of our concern to make sure that Diablo III would have longevity, we were overly cautious about how we handled item drops and affixes. If 1.0.4 hasn’t fixed that, you can be sure we’ll continue to address it.
Part of the problem, however, is not just item drops, but the variety of things to do within the game. Many of you have stated that there needs to be more to the game than just the item hunt, and we agree completely. The Paragon system is a step in the right direction, giving meta-progress for your time in the game, but it does little to address the variety of activities you can do while playing. I don’t think there’s a silver-bullet solution to this problem, but I do think we can make this aspect of the game better, and as such we’re planning more than just PvP for the next major patch. Not trying to be coy, but we’re still firming things up and will talk about this as soon as we can.
Difficulty has been a constant source of division when discussing the game. Some players believe Diablo has never been about crushing challenges, but more about efficiency and farming. Some players want a game that tests them to their limits. Neither player is wrong. As it stands, Diablo III simply does not provide the tools to allow players to scale the game challenge to something appropriate for them. We set Inferno as the high watermark and took a one-size-fits-all approach to game challenge. Later in the development of Diablo II, the ‘players 8′ command — which let people set monster difficulty — was added to address this issue, and we’re considering something similar for the next major Diablo III patch to allow players to make up their own minds about how hard or how easy is right for them.
The Auction House has also proven to be a big challenge. It adds a lot of power for players to trade and acquire items. Getting a great Monk drop that you can trade for better gear for your Wizard is obviously a great benefit, but it does come with a downside. The Auction House can short circuit the natural pace of item drops, making the game feel less rewarding for some players. This is a problem we recognize. At this point we’re not sure of the exact way to fix it, but we’re discussing it constantly, and we believe it’s a problem we can overcome.
While these are some of the major issues with Diablo III, they aren’t the only things we’re looking at. On a daily basis we ask ourselves if the classes are satisfying to play, if rares and champions are fun to fight, if they’re tuned well relative to normal monsters. Can we make further improvements to social elements of the game? How can items be even better?
We made Diablo III because we believe in the Diablo games. We think the gameplay is awesome, the world is compelling, and it’s the game we all wanted to play. Because we believe in it, we’ll continue to stand by it and make it better. We are committed to making Diablo III the best Diablo game to date, and we hope you’ll continue to help us do just that.
Saying that, I’d like to apologize to all of you, the players in our community. You deserve better than my reaction to Dave’s comments. You deserve more honest communication about the game and what we’re doing to make it a more awesome experience for us all. We care about Diablo very much, and appreciate your passion for it. Without you, we wouldn’t be able to do this, and for that I can’t thank you enough.
F**k that guy
Sorry couldn’t help myself.
PR almighty…
Yes, that’s the question. Knowing exactly to what extent the article is PR and to what extent it is heartfelt. I want to believe it is heartfelt… Let’s see how things pan out.
What I believe to be heartfelt was the words he originally said in Facebook.
And his reaction, in my opinion, was uncalled for. What Brevik said was that he was happy that Diablo 3 proved that it’s about the people, and he was rightfully happy for that. He wasn’t happy because different people make suckier Diablos, he was happy because different people make DIFFERENT Diablos.
I think the devs are just butthurt, and they have absolutely no reason to be, because, after all, “only” the hardcore fans (a part of them anyway) are unhappy with the game. Everyone I know thinks it’s awesome, and I think it is too.
Flux, you missed another story about a Blizzard Community Manager saying that since Diablo, David Brevik has produced nothing but sh!t (http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/8761/article/blizzard-community-manager-trolls-anti-blizzard-facebook-page/)
I suggest you let more people know about the crazy antics of Blizzard.
http://www.spokentext.net/members/WhiteSea/A_Message_From_Jay.mp3
Spoken out for you in-case you wanted to hear it read aloud.
How much of this article do you think he wrote?
I’m fairly confident that he wrote it all. It may not have been his initial idea, and was certainly sparked from his indiscretion (that is to say, he wouldn’t have written this without it happening), but I think he’s a real enough guy to own up to a mistake.
Rage and storm about how unprofessional the comment is and how much you hate the game, but give credit where credit is due.
Agreed. This bit seems more human, and reminds me he’s a dude who likes diablo, not some activi$ion ball gobbler. By no means is he gabe, however, at least jay didn’t give us 2/3s of a game, promise the last third, and then you know, **** off for 8 years.
There is no credit due here. The guy screwed up, got caught despite trying to hide it, and then was forced to write a PR statement containing a half hearted apology following considerable community backlash.
I grew up in a time where we didn’t get a gold star for failure and apologizing for failure. So until I see a game that is truly worthy of the Diablo name he will get NOTHING. Good day sir!
Let it go man. It was just a comment he made. Are you such a perfect angel that you have never used a swear word to express yourself? Don’t hold other people to higher standards than you hold yourself.
He is the lead developer of my favorite game franchise. Of course I’m going to hold him to higher personal standards than I would myself because he has such a crucial position in the development of something that is very important to me. His attitude toward criticism (telling people to &#%$ off in public) is a problem when the game is at a stage where it needs criticism to move forward.
With regard to professional standards I would (and do) hold myself accountable to the same standards. He knows he violated those standards. I’m not going to applaud this man when he apologizes for bad behavior. That’s just stupid. He will get credit if he puts his money where his mouth is and steers the project back toward it’s roots. I have no problem whatsoever applauding success.
give credit to where its due? yet you make an unsubstantiated claim that he did write it with no evidence? if he didn’t in fact write it, then what ****ing credit are we to ascribe to him?
presume guilty unless proven innocent?
It’s fine for you to blindly hate – that’s your prerogative. It’s a sad existence, but there it is.
Knowing him better than you do is my evidence. Jay is a pretty straight shooter when it comes to these things. PR and faults notwithstanding, he took this blunder as an opportunity to make good on more than just his moment of indiscretion.
You can choose not to believe me, and that’s fine. However, this response deserves credit in my book, especially when no apology was expected.
I’m as mad as the next man about this business, but look, let’s not get crazy conspiracy. Jay wrote the apology, and I have no reason to doubt he meant it. It’s great he did that.
That said, it would have been nice to see him drop the implication that Dave was ‘disparaging’ the DIII team – he clearly wasn’t. The fact that the D3 team responded in such fashion shows how sensitive they are to criticism – which means only that it hit way too close to home. They know they aren’t measuring up to the quality of Blizzard Past. For me, it’s good thing that this worries them, maybe not all hope is lost for Blizzard.
Now, the mockery of a man who tried to do something ambitious and new like Hellgate, after developing their franchise in the first place, while Starcraft II and Diablo III are simply minor, quality, iterations on an existing formula is absolutely appalling. I’d like to see the others apologise, as their comments were way worse.
Especially that bitch who had a go at IncGamers, the most loyal and temperate game community in the history of gaming…I don’t know who she is but she should be fired.
“You deserve more honest communication about the game”
It’s a shame it took an incident like this to have him/them come to this realization.
whatever you do don’t question the apology on the official forums they are banning for ‘harassment’
http://i.imgur.com/A9a4h.jpg
LoL! – That is crazy!
most appropriate response i can think of to JW’s non-apology?
**** THAT LOSER
It’s “**** that loser” to be more accurate.
Honestly? This was way more of an apology than I expected. Good on Jay for this.
Personally, I think 1.04 has been a big step in the right direction, for what I already considered a good game, especially just 3 months into the game (D2 took years and an expansion before it became the game a lot of us remember).
I missed the actual apology.
I got the part where he accused DB of trying to “disparage the commitment and passion of the Diablo III team”. He didn’t. He just said their lack of experience showed, and illustrated why experience counts.
I also got the part where he sees himself as the embodiment of “Diablo”, and “commitment to Diablo” is why a small handful of mid-managers – only one of which actually worked with DB – of the original 60+ that made D2 remain.
I’m thinking it’s the part where he said, “I want to make it clear that I am very sorry for what I said. I have higher expectations for myself than to express my feelings in such a rash way and disrespect a fellow developer like Dave, someone who deserves to be treated with greater respect.”
“I’m very sorry for what I said” sounds like an apology to me.
Does that mean that the D3 dev team (being mid-managers) didn’t have the full support of Blizzard? IIRC Blizzard’s stance on a sequel was “no” for so very long. Did Jay push for a sequel, only to have management say that he had to develop it with minimum resources whilst working on WoW patches/expansions and starcraft II?
That would certainly explain why the game took ~10 years but plays like it took less than 4.
which idiot think the game was ever developed for 10 years? it was just the wait for the sequal was 10 years
Clearly the guy above you does, so I guess he either an idiot or he the fact that D3 got kind of got cancelled and restarted.
Re-read my post before you go committing a straw man fallacy… and you might want to google what a straw man fallacy is.
I vaguely remember back in 2001-2005 (can’t remember) people were pressing Blizzard for a sequel and they kept saying no. I think there was an interview and the info appeared on this site. The community has always been kept in the dark about internal affairs as Blizzard is not a transparent company.
What I am ASKING (not asserting) is what was going on internally with Blizzard over the proposed production of D3?
Yeah, I’m happy with the current direction as well. One thing in that statement has me worried though.
“Many of you have stated that there needs to be more to the game than just the item hunt, and we agree completely.”
Sure, extra content is never a bad thing, but does anyone else feel like they’ve had the wrong idea about what makes Diablo Diablo the whole time? If he thinks that the problem with the state of D3 is not enough late-game content, he couldn’t be more wrong. There is no such thing as “just the item hunt”. Diablo IS the item hunt.
I’m still waiting for the apology. I don’t see an actual apology to David Brevik anywhere in that long diatribe of PR speak. Sure, there was an apology to the players, a sort of “please come back to us! I didn’t really mean it!” kind of thing, but there was no apology to the person he actually insulted.
Read it again. Perhaps you skipped the paragraph. Comments above point out the actual quote.
Yup, read it again, still not seeing an apology to David Brevik.
TLDR: “I’m very very sorry something rude I said, that I thought only other Bliz employees would see, went public. Blizzard PR will make sure that never happens again.”
TLDR: “Flux needs to relax and learn how to accept an apology.”
its not an apology if its followed by 3 paragraphs of “I had very good reasons to say what I did and it was valid and a appropriate response”
Personally i think people made to big a stink about this anyways, hell hes a game developer not a governor. I saw things i regert saying all the time, in the heat of the moment we all say dumb things.
The game is getting better and people need to realize that D2 took years to become what we remember today as its final form.
I do like the content this site provides but sometimes the snarkyness is really dumb. It s a game, if your not having fun or it bothers you so bad that Blizz North diden’t make it you need to step away from it. Just my humble opinion /end rant
I didn’t want or need Jay to apologize. He can have bitter feelings towards the D1/D2 creator if he wants to. I support his right to blindly defend his team of developers, and made that clear in posts Sunday night.
http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?838627-Blizzard-The-epitome-of-class&p=8411125&viewfull=1#post8411125
That said, sincerity or not, this is clearly a PR move. If Chris Haga’s FB page had actually been private and this had never turned into an internet story, does anyone think Jay apologized for it?
What was the response from the other Bliz peeps to Jay’s comment? Shocked at the profanity and negativity? No, it was laughter and “likes”. Obviously from that reaction they say this kind of thing all the time on internal email threads and in staff meetings. Imagine what they must say about hater fans giving D3 a 3.2 rating on Metacritic? (Hint: about the same thing any of us would say about haters going out of their way to **** our product.)
Like most who issue public apologies, his main sorrow is that he got caught.
I get what you mean by that. It’s certainly PR, but I really liked his apology, for one thing….
What struck me as being really off is his comment about his father and his wife, which sounded like he was trying too hard to demonstrate how actually addicted to Diablo 2 he was.
That sound so PR to me…, but in a wrong way, like he was trying to prove how much he cares about Diablo at the expense of sharing personal details nobody cares about, now that people were disappointed because he seemed not to care about the series after some decisions he took and some comments he had made.
Life is conflict. And certainly sometimes I don’t know what to think.
Wow, I just lost a lot of respect for you Flux. I visit this site regularly, but you can’t seem to give Jay Wilson a fair shake. I suppose it’s all in your perception and intention, as no matter what any one does, one can always rationalize it into a negative if they really wanted to. He’s not really apologizing…he’s just sorry he’s caught. He’s not really a Diablo fan, he’s just fake telling us stories about his Diablo passion.
What is true is this: everybody makes mistakes. And we all deserve second chances. The fact that you and many others are so dismissive really makes me disappointed in this incgamers community. I’ll visit here less and visit other fan sites more, like diablofans and reddit, as they deserve my page views.
yeah, look at it another way, Flux could be doing all this to get hits on his site. He just want controversy and he doesn’t care about Diablo at all. All these could be true.
The irony being if you had been doing only that over the last few days you wouldn’t know what this was about because the thread on reddit was deleted as(not relevant to the game according to mods) and wasn’t reported at all on the other fansite.
@Hanni..yes 15 years working on a fansite because he doesn’t care about diablo at all.
“That said, sincerity or not, this is clearly a PR move. If Chris Haga’s FB page had actually been private and this had never turned into an internet story, does anyone think Jay apologized for it?”
So you’ve never *once* said something in anger about anybody under your breath, or to someone else?
Everybody does. And of course you don’t apologise if the target never finds out. That doesn’t mean you don’t often regret saying it, or didn’t really mean it. But is it really worth bringing up?
If you apologize honestly you usually apologize to the person you offended; Not “community”…
@drops – Actually, if you did something to one person that had third-party repercussions, it is most appropriate to apologize to all those affected.
In addition, he extended his apology to incorporate the entire state of the game, and to be honest, I think that was the apology we as a community deserved.
99.9% of all humans do, think, or say something for bad reasons that they should feel ashamed about later on.
Since most people are private citizens, either we apologize to those close to us, those who heard it, or just forget about it.
The fact that he released a large apology publicly is obviously due to the fact that he works for a company, yes. But that doesn’t mean he can’t recognize in hindsight that it was a douchey thing to say. You’re basically saying “since he works for a company that cares about its PR, there is 0 chance he means this” – which is an absurd stance to take. Are you saying that no one is genuinely sorry for anything they say ever, and that we only pretend to apologize for the sake of people who catch us?
I would expect he still would but it just would of been a private apology just to Dave Brevik.
Really? I know you come across as the pessimist, and I understand some of your dislike for the blizzard group, but you really gotta hand it to the guy for doing the apology. I mean, if you wanna send out the hate/dislike/etc. vibes, throw it at Diablofans. Did you see the moderator ignoring all evidence that the facebook post was Jay and kept saying all proof points to it being someone trolling?
I prefer this site for the mostly “honest” information, but sometimes the hate or whatever word you’d like to use just seems so unwarranted. Just my 2cents though I could be completely off base, which happens when my twin girls keep me up all night. lol
But it’s true. He did think it was private and PR would have said he had to apologize and it won’t happen again. oh and it is long. nothing hateful.
Oh, we got a wise guy!
I’m surprised Blizzard PR let him include the bit about sending his pregnant wife away when Diablo 2 was released.
“let”? They would have suggested such a tactic.
It is to humanize him. If you throw people some personal information (and what is better than a baby) it softens people and they are more receptive to your message, especially in an embarrassing situation like this. It is also why 95% of the apology is addressing game issues to detract and move on from the topic. Fans will focus momentarily on the apology and then move their focus on to what he says about the game.
Only works if it’s true or noone tries to look it up. If it’s not true and the latter happens, it could backfire very well. But you’re right: After reading again it sounds a bit, as if the whole paragraph was inserted afterwards to fetch a bit more sympathy for him as a person.
Why would they do that, with that, of all the things he could have said? Is it to give us perspective of what sort of person he is? We have to stop and think; is what he did to the Diablo franchise worse than what he did to his pregnant wife? Is he as terrible at being a husband and father as he is as being a game designer?
Lost a lot respect for Jay because of his comment. I lost a lot respect for you because of your comment.
We’ll never know if this is actually how Jay feels or if it’s just blizz PR breathing in his back. But if you do not let a guy make an apology and respect that apology you really should reconsider the way you treat people around you. All people do make stupid mistakes that they regret and all people do deserve a chance to make up for those mistakes.
I lost a lot of respect for Jay too.
I wholeheartedly agree with windstriker. Flux’ comments are not much more professional (if at all) than Jay’s. If you’re the owner of a website and head of a community, people expect you to act like a professional as well, and not like some teenager who got bit in the ass one too many times.
I’m sorry, but while I still visit diablo.incgamers.com for non-pr news (sadly lacking from diablofans.com), this site thanks to Flux among others, has become a breeding ground for negativity and bitter disappointment. I have no desire for it.
You could just stick to the Diablo forum not filled with disappointment and negativity. Let me know if you find one. Dead serious…
Don’t see what’s wrong with wrong with flux’s comments. Just stating it like it is, as always. Can’t expect anything else from a man putting up the news. Not his fault the news is negative. The only true glimpse of Blizzard internals just rounded the corner and some people already get the wool pulled over their eyes again.
You forget that Flux put out his ass for diablo 3. This site was my favorite site pre release and incgamers did alot of promotion for diablo 3.
In return, the developers call this site sarcastically ‘paragons of objectivity’ and scold the one who was the father of the series.
Jay’s apology is pure damage control as he doesn’t need to apologise to us but to Brevik. The fact that he does aim the letter to us means it’s because the PR department forced him to do so to not tarnish the rep of blizz.
I’m sorry, let me get this clear, Flux’s cynical comment on how Jay’s apology came about is nearly tantamount to calling a fellow developer a loser publicly and in front of the targets colleagues?
What is unprofessional about viewing a situation with cynicism? He’s already acknowledged (in the post he linked to) Jay was probably just defending his team, did you even bother reading that.
But, in your haste to chastise Flux for his comment you managed to somehow overlook this very news item you are in now, the intro from Niz. Or did you read it (the accepting, forgiving tone) and as it didn’t play into the point you wanted to make you pushed it to one side. You have also overlooked Flux’s recent articles on how much fun he’s having in Diablo 3 (tempered with the bad points of course). They’re on the front page and hit the link at the bottom of the page to scroll back over the last few weeks’ worth. No. None of it plays into this point you wanted to make.
The negativity and disappointment is internet-wide Astroquicky. It’s allowed to exist here because it’s a fact and we won’t suppress it, although we delete far more than you would know (as you’re not a mod). But there is also a lot of positivity, especially lately, also very easy to find if you desire to look for it.
hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
Thank you Elly, for voicing something that is also in mind as well.
I bought (and play) Diablo 3 because I have over 20 gaming buddies I met since back in 1990′s who played D2 and felt good about the experience. I played other games like Warcraft etc, and although I am new when it comes to Diablo 3 I am not new in gaming as I’ve been involved with MMO even before such thing as UO or Everquest.
I don’t have that special attachment nor some self-entitlement to get apology from Jay. But, I can see that what he did was improper. The excuses made by him or his sympathizers are irrelevant.
What I don’t get is why do these people go out of their way, and to the extreme, to create those excuses, to the point that they commit every single thing they accused others (like for example, flux).
Like you mentioned it, for some reason they conveniently omit the part where flux reports something that has positive tone, labeling him to be an ogre based on selective reading then complain how Jay was being treated as such. I don’t want to be harsh, but do all these people bothered to use their head? Are they a bunch of kids or adults with intellectual capacity of a 10 year old? At least if they want to demonized flux or something, anything, why not put more effort to make it so that they don’t look hypocritical. You know, try to make it less obvious when committing double standard and the (baseless) accusation.
I am not trying to put Jay under (bad) spotlight, but his whole response sounds like “I am sorry, but despite saying sorry I meant what I said.” The context supports it. The tone of his message supports it too.
In any case, my point is whatever your side is, pro-jay or not, if you want to demonize something make sure you don’t commit the exact same thing you demonize the other party with or make sure your side’s god is clean on the matter.
I’d also like to thank incgamer for being there. I like to visit and read both flavors of reports on something that interests me. If I just want to see PR content, I don’t need to go out of my way to do so. I can read the box cover for feature list. And certainly Blizzard’s (or any company’s)advertisement will work hard to come to my doorstep, without me having to put any effort to get them.
Regardless of whether you think Jay is a human (while that plumber who fail to fix your sink or your spouse who slept with the milkman isn’t
) thus allowed to make mistakes, we all know that having his involvement in any product in the future will affect its sales-outlook (or investor willingness to shell out the money or hiring).
Remember a couple days ago when they mentioned this site and you said Diablo.incgamers was always unbiased?
Is this childish response part of that unbiased presentation then?
As it’s closer to the truth of the matter I would hope so.
And nailed it. He’s just upset he got caught, and anyone that can read between the lines can see the same.
Flux, as always, I agree with you, and was wondering on the last few days, where is torchlight.incgamers.com ?
Your articles on D2 were the best and I would (will?) really like to see you writing on TL2, personally I only ever visit this site now to see what’s the next problem arising on D3, at the same time hoping to see Blizz announcing it’s offline mode (fat chance yeah).
I think you’re wasting your time on D3, this game will never live up to d2…
Yes, Flux articles about D2 were some of the best I have ever seen about the game. I even translated some of them and got published in different pages. Those articles made people learn and immersed them in the game like never before.
I have a feeling though that D3 is not feature-rich enough to deserve great articles, because, is there something you can talk about? Not much, no IAS, no frames, no actual MF, no monster drops, etc etc.
I think this is great and will help to dissipate all the tensions.
Also: “You deserve more honest communication about the game and what we’re doing to make it a more awesome experience for us all.”
I hope this means they are going to give us more information and it’s not just a nice line he wanted to put in there.
pretty sure what he said on Facebook was the first HONEST communication he’s given
Unlike you, this “false text” disgusts me. I’m pretty sure Jay Wilson thinks even worse for Brevik and Diablo fanbase now.
It’s always fine to apologize when you made a mistake.
Fine to apologize yes indeed it is.
What doesn’t make sense to me is the fanboys fluttering around here acting like he’s Jesus the martyr down off the cross. Poor baby Jay! People have been so hard on him! He doesn’t deserve to be criticized for screwing up the franchise!
He’s going to be held accountable for failure and his personal character flaws. He doesn’t get OR DESERVE a pass. Ever. Deal with it.
The main thing I got out of this article is that they are planning more content on top of the PvP patch.
How about some new maps? Hire 2 guys to just make maps 24/7.
I really wish there was a random map generator.. just random dungeon/scenery thrown together every time with any possible combination of monster types. None of the areas feel random at all except for which events spawn.
Path of Exile has a really cool system in which you find maps and they can transport you to a completely random map with stuff like +50% item drops but monsters are 20% tougher.. or something along those lines from when I played it a month ago on the open weekend.
I’m hoping D3 eventually adds more randomness so I can feel like i’m not running around the same places and facing the same combination of mobs all the time.
I really would not be surprised, at all, if that’s what they did. And then thread some sort of progression through it, like finding items or killing particular enemies/bosses or something.
I really don’t mind Jay’s original comment much. David’s answers in the interview, as I said in the article for it, are pretty much backhanded politically trash-talking of diablo 3. Saying “that’s not what I would have done” is just being gentle, and that’s not what Jay did. It’s sad that a comment on facebook matters so much, but that’s the world we live in and a big part of Jay’s job is knowing that. People make mistakes, he sure did, and I think this apology is perfect and excuses him of the offenses of…being rude and using a bad word. Perhaps he could have been political like David and made a half-assed cut against the guy, but he probably didn’t think more than a few seconds before posting that comment.
I haven’t been following the whole kerfuffle in depth, but I’d assumed that Jay hadn’t realized the update he was commenting on was public when he made the comment.
I gotta say, I’d be pretty embarrassed if some of my responses to negative reviews had been inadvertently made public as well.
I also tend to agree that the comments in the initial interview, while more polite, were in my opinion not especially wise. I mean, some of his comments do basically boil down to, “I’m glad that the controversy shows that the D2 team was better than the D3 team!” which while more polite than Jay’s comment wasn’t really much more politic.
The problem with Jay’s comment for me was the impression that that’s how Jay & his team think of us, players who liked Diablo 1/2 and don’t like Diablo 3. It’s like he said: “Shut up, David and community! We know just as much as you about designing great games and what is fun, and by the way we’re rolling in dough. And you, huh?”
So for me it smelled of arrogance. However I did get others’ people opinion here that he made such a comment in a moment of folly to defend his team.
That aside, I’m glad to see this apology. As I see it, it was very needed, more so to break the disconnection between them, “the gods” that failed, and players who were expecting much more from them… To me personally it marks the time when I’m ready to let my disappointment with the game and the people behind it go away, and play it for what it’s worth. Sincerely hope they’ll make it better.
Looking at the facebook page, you’ve got one from the team saying DB’s comment really made that person feel crap about himself – in that regard, JW’s comment could easily be meant as a ‘Don’t let it get to you’.
- I know it doesn’t really justify anything, but still…
On a personal level, I find it far harder to accept when people can’t own up to having made a mistake, than the mistake itself. You may lose some credit by screwing up, but at least you have the decency to be honest about it.
I hope that, once he calmed down, Jay saw the need to write this, and it’s not that Blizz told him to. Some good thoughts there, regardless.
He was backed into a corner, if it hadn’t erupted he would have kept quiet but it was a story that wasn’t going away. He was sorry he got caught calling him a loser.
Apologizing is what was needed and it is good Blizzard made him do it, even if it is buried in gameplay discussion.
who hasn’t got pissed off at something someone said and then said something like “f**k that loser” to make a friend (or yourself) feel better?
It had nothing do do with what jay really feels about dave, just a rash reaction in a friends defense.
I’m happy to see this apology. I think the whole thing was blown WAY out proportion (on both sides of the issue). David and Jay were both just being real people and I hope that this is the end of it. Now hopefully Jay and the rest of the team can get back to the IMPORTANT things…accentuating the positives that are in place and fixing the negatives.
Simple as…