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Not necessarily. I think the whole point of the discourse thing is that it spreads beyond just the chat itself. For example, even if I don't enable chat, I could still be affected by people on this forum whining about chat toxicity.
Not necessarily. It could just mean that with Hearthstone, Blizzard has decided to adopt a position of zero-tolerance towards toxicity. They know that toxicity is contagious, and a few bad apples could spoil the whole community/discourse. I applaud them for that, because I'm able to enjoy the game without ever being exposed to toxicity.
This should mean the pro chat side has won. Who are you people? :D You can't suck it up? And people who enable chats would come to persistently "whine" about chat toxicity? Maybe, I guess. Individuals wouldn't do it persistently but there could be a whining train. I like some of the words you use too. Just ridiculous. You sound like more of a whiner yourself.
What's the real reason some people don't want chats, even ones that can be disabled? Non-essays would suffice.
Blizzard is very popular. A very popular company can attract a disproportionate number of less mature "toxic" chatters relative to other companies. There probably is a volume of examples. Still not good enough of an argument in my opinion. Hence why you enable and disable. Spilling toxicity like Asuryan suggested I find ridiculous, and I'm not sure what the other guy was claiming. How does it spill? Just singular exposure to people who experiment really tainting their experience? The fact of there being an option exposing people, younger players in particular? Hmmm...
Nvm.
if hearthstone players get butt hurt over greetings emotes than what do you think will happen if they made in game chat? the world would end as we know it.
First of all, it's then. Second, I would like a chat to cure my but... I guess if the community as a whole is quite immature then I see your point. A pity, really. I guess I'm biased toward chats. :( You can't really tie chats on ranked to the age submitted on your account, can you? Another idea is just experimenting with chats to see what would happen, but it seems unlikely Blizzard would do that.
its not going to work no matter how you slice it. there are kids playing this game, and 95% of the hearthstone community seems to go emo when someone sends 1 emote their way. you can see this easily by just going on some of the forums on here. theres hundreds of pages of people saying how negative "bm" as they go on for hours ranting and swearing lol. if people could actually talk in game it would be a disaster basically
I'm someone who rages over emotes and I would like a chat to cure my butthurt, for one. I see putting punk kids in their place as fine too. But if you have many players who will overreact or be unable to handle themselves resulting in some stopping or playing less then that's certainly an issue and chats could be described as toxic. This coming in addition to some level of obscenity and indecency. Even with disabling chats the cost of HS chats having that image could be too high. This sucks. It really does speak to the overall lack of maturity of the Blizzard community, on both ends, in comparison to other communities where this stuff isn't prohibitive. I'd still be interested in an experiment but can see how this would actually be detrimental.
In one sense, of course, whatever changes are being made in a game, if anyone can notice them, they will be discussed here. But the thing is, if something is done that 80% of the players like 15% don't care and 5% don't like, whose threads are we going to see proliferating here the most? 80%? No. 15%? No. It's those who do not like it who are talking about it, obviously.
But if the game is developed on the basis that the community does not want to see negative posts because it makes the discourse less happy, then the game cannot really be developed at all.
More importantly, you are a moderator. You read all kinds of posts. Typical hs player who would not enable the chat is not very likely to read posts about chat toxicity.
So, while everything affects the discourse, that kind of an argument can be used against any changes whatsoever. It is quite telling if the best argument against the ingame chat is indeed this one...
Yes necessarily.
Your argument that other game houses tolerate toxicity, but Blizzard does not, is utterly unconvincing. In theory it could be true, but in practice I can't see any reason why the other game houses would adopt such a position towards toxicity that obviously generates much less player satisfaction and revenue.
No, the fact to the matter is that not one major game developer tolerates toxicity. Every major game developer knows toxicity is contagious, and what kind of an effect few bad apples can have. Its basic social psychology that all community managers and developers in all major gaming houses have studied or learned by doing.
As such, the only logical conclusions that we can draw from the fact that there is no ingame chat in HS while there is in every other online game are
A) that decision is right, which means that the cons outweight the pros only in the case of HS, which means that there is something particularly toxicity-generating in HS
or
B) that the proportion of pros versus cons brought about by ingame chat in the case of HS is not much different from other games, in which pros outweight the cons. This would mean that the rationale for the decision to not include an ingame chat in HS is not sound.
(Also, I know that there has been toxicity even in these boards that has been removed, so I know for certain that you have not been able to enjoy the game "without ever being exposed to toxicity.")
For the gazillionth time: The players who get "butthurt over emotes" would be the least likely to enable ingame chat. In my opinion, Bliz would do well add the option to disable the emotes in the same patch that would add the possibility to enable an ingame chat. Besides, there should obviously be a squelch button for the ingame chat as well, so that no one would have to listen to abuse.
All other developers are willing to make the effort to both allow chatting while also being committed to remove abuse though reporting (as in wow) or community tribunals (LoL) or through some other manner. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect the same kind of dedication with HS as well.
This is pretentious tripe. There are different kinds of bad apples and different ways of handling communities. There is no good science on this. People who believe in something like this might belong and contribute to stunted communities where rules are stricter but the posters are half-wit, prideful children sustained by the appearance of substance. On the other hand you have runaway communities where immaturity is rampant. Neither is good and neither community managers nor developers have a solid understand that accommodates many different kinds of people and results in more harmonious communities. Both types of communities have emerged around Blizzard. By rule most community managers may not be the sharpest tools in the shed, which certainly applies to many a moderator. Everyone likes science though.
Bad apples also aren't lost causes, nor do they spoil the bunch unless there is something wrong with the bunch as well. The pervasive and incorrect use of "troll" is a case in point. The expression, even when rough, of many valid or genuine issues of people is labeled as trolling because many people are kind of dumb and cannot effectively handle challenges. In turn such communities are actually comprised of spoiled apples and wrongly identify what a spoiled apple is. They are afraid of the boat being rocked and may not evaluate things well.
This may be what rescues the idea of chats. It seems to be a demanding task though and a problematic one too. But it ultimately can work. Depends on the will behind having chats in the game. (I took it for granted Blizzard would be unwilling to try and enforce things based on precedent elsewhere.) By the way, I think a good solution would allow for different standards depending on the participants.
I think you may have misunderstood what I said, because I basically do not disagree with anything you just said. What I posted there was to argue against posts polishing Blizzard's halo along the lines: "Blizzard is so devoted to combating toxicity that it wont accept ingame chatting because of the toxicity it might generate and that other developers who allow chatting are just less dedicated to combating toxicity."
No major developer tolerates toxicity, although some communities do face more toxicity than others. However, the developers of those games whose communties face more toxicity are not likely to tolerate it any more than the developers of those games whose communities face less toxicity. Actually, the opposite is more true. Developers who are serious in their battle against toxicity tend to invest a lot of time and resources in alleviating toxicity.
With the single exception of Blizzard, none of these developers are just disabling the in game chat "as a measure against toxicity." That's like putting absolutely zero resources in combating toxicity. That's like preventing schoolyard bullying by removing schoolyards.
Ironically Blizzard tolerates a lot of toxicity, if you've seen SC2 chats for instance. :p This may well be a big part of the reason why they're handling Hearthstone the way they are. You have to admit disabling chats because of toxicity means intolerance for toxicity. Regardless, it's beside the point. It's a matter of cost versus benefit and when chats are working well they are beneficial and more (chats have special qualities that cannot be quantified/approximated easily because of how significant they can be), which is part of the reason why other games have them and try to enforce standards for participation rather than exclude them. It's a matter of whether Blizzard would undertake systematic action to keep chats acceptable. This I don't know. It's hardly just undoable though.
They could at LEAST have a general chat where lots of people are in randomly selected chatrooms like in other blizzard games.
Technically that is true. However, enabling chats does not mean toxicity would be tolerated either, because this would mean that practically all other game developers tolerate toxicity, which is obviously not true.
As such, the whole discussion on tolerance/intolerance for toxicity is not relevant here.
What is relevant, instead, is how much Blizzard is prepared to commit resources for combating toxicity. Disabling chat is pretty close to the lowest possible commitment of resources for combating toxicity. Here Blizzard invests nothing, while the community carries the whole burden that this solution entails by having to give up any possibility to chat with each other.
And this is exactly what I am criticizing. Obviously, the most effective way for a developer to prevent any potential toxicity in the community is to not make any games at all. The second best way is to prevent the community from communicating (although the emote issue and friend request -> abuse issues indicate that this solution is quite limited, too).
I think that Blizzard should respect the community more by committing resources in a manner that helps the community to reduce actual toxicity. This is what all the other developers do in one way or another. The current no chat "solution" is like a slap in the face, saying: "We cannot allow any of you to chat. You are such a toxic community that we are totally unable to invest resources in you in the form of any anti-toxicity solution that that could make chatting possible for any of you."
I'm exposed to it here on the forums, but not in the game. If I wanted to completely avoid the toxicity, I could stop coming to the forum without giving up HS.
How does the level of toxicity on HS Twitch chat compare with other games' Twitch streams? I've never looked at Twitch, but I know from the discourse that the HS chat gets pretty ugly.
Where are you finding these people you're supposedly engaging in this friendly and intelligent discourse with? I ask because I've been in Hearthstone since early on in the closed beta, I've played thousands of matches, and out of the dozens of friend requests I've received and accepted they've ALL been to flame me.
This is a 1v1 competitive game, it's not co-op, chat adds nothing. There is already a well played emote, and that's really about all I could ever see myself saying to an opponent. At best in my time as a competitive gamer chat, be it text or voice, has been a barely tolerable experience. The vast majority of the time it's been a toxic filthpit populated by people who probably don't realize that they're obnoxious. Add chat, but make it opt-in IMO.
This is my point exactly. Those who want to avoid toxicity are not likely to either enable the chat or read the threads on chat toxicity.
But earlier you said that the option to enable ingame chat could render the discourse around HS more toxic, referring to the possible proliferation of threads that discuss the experiences of toxicity in the chat.
So, I am asking you this:
How can the option to enable chat inevitably make the HS experience more toxic, if it is possible to avoid being influenced by the supposedly increased toxicity of discourse by not enabling the chat nor reading the threads on chat toxicity?
Or are you just saying that the discourse in general would get more toxic, but that players could avoid being influenced by that toxicity of discourse by not enabling the chat and not reading toxicity threads?
If it is the latter, then we agree perfectly. The increased toxicity would only harm those people who decide that the benefits of being able to chat outweight the harm caused to them by the possible increase in toxicity. This means that the pros of ingame chat outweight the cons, which has been my argument all along.
Sorry for quoting the whole post, I'm on a mobile.
My point is based on linguistic science, and it's difficult to cover the subject without context. In this regard, one should see discourse as the air your breath (a bit far fetched, but it does the metaphorical job). Whether you use it or not, its quality is affected by a million factors, like pollution. Sure, you could live completely isolated, but if you look out the window you still see black smoke and coughing people.
Again, it's not about the individual choice, but rather how Blizzard, by not having a chat, forms the discourse to not be affected by these elements. Whether you participate in it or not, you probably will want to look out the window once in a while.
Your arguments are sound, and my point partly comes from that I'm of the opinion that games and forums benefit from aggressive moderation.
We agree 99%. =) Its just that the vast majority of HS players do not visit these forums. If you do not enable the chat, and do not visit the forums, then its like you are living in a house with active ventilation and closed shutters, wearing ear plugs. So the degree to which these people would be affected by the increased toxicity of discourse is really, REALLY, minute.
As such, these people should not be among the main considerations when assessing whether or not we as a community would benefit from having an optional ingame chat.
Honestly if there was a chat I wouldn't have much positive things to say as most of the time I would talk when my opponent got lucky as hell therefore being annoyed and nothing good will probably come from that.