Yong Woo and Ben Brode on the Designer Insights Video Series
There's been some talk lately, which grew from the Hearthstone 2017 Wishlist question, about wanting to see more of the Designer Insights video series and why they haven't happened very much. That lead to an explanation of why they aren't done very often and we've summarized it below.
- The team wants to do more designer insight videos.
- Ben does the videos at home in off hours due to not having a good spot at the office to do them at.
- It isn't as simple as talking to a camera for a few minutes.
- Videos go through multiple takes, and then some more after the team provides feedback. It can take days to get one episode right.
- They are working on getting space that is a permanent setup for this type of content.
- More developers being on them could happen, though some don't want to be harassed by the community.
I really don't like to make articles here personal, but the final point is one of much importance. We've gotten to an interesting point where we want more of something but due to the toxic nature of many comments directed at the Hearthstone team, no one from the team wants to come out and talk and it's actually not very interesting at all, just sad.
Although you may not agree with certain philosophies that the team may have about the game, it is important to post with respect and stay constructive. We should be welcoming communication first and foremost, so let's make that more of a priority this year and not feed those who want to cast plagues upon the creators. On the moderation side we can only do so much since we're only one site of many within the community, but as a whole, we need to stop letting the really toxic posts stew.
Anyway, back the to regular scheduled programming of the sources for this post. Oh, and if you want to vent a bit about not being able to win games, we've got our group therapy thread.
Blue Posts
This conversation has taken place over Twitter and reddit.
Tweet to Yong Woo
The initial question was posed by @Spideraxe30 wondering if they'd consider doing more.
Quote from Yong WooHas the team ever considered doing more designer insight videos since i think a majority of the community enjoys them
It takes significant amount of time for people involved to make those but we want to do more for sure!
Ben Brode Responds on Reddit
A thread on reddit which linked the above tweet got some discussion brewing about the topic so Ben decided to chime in on it. He also shared a picture of his setup. Please send us huge Hearthstone backdrops, they're rad.
Quote from Ben BrodeA little more context for you!I make those videos at home after my son goes to bed. Since daylight savings hit last spring my son goes to bed at 8:30 instead of 7:30, so I have an hour less time each night. I have to move my computer because otherwise you see my bed in the background (like in my first video) and that's a bit weird/unprofessional. Also because I record at night, I have to set up my studio lights. Once I have it all set up, I do several takes. Often I flub a line so bad I start over. I hate editing together cuts because I think it looks kind of jarring and distracting.
Once I have something I think might work, I send it to the rest of the people who care about this stuff on the Team, like Jason Chayes (Production Director). Sometimes they remind me of key points I totally forgot to mention, and I have to find another free night to do another take.
This is all pretty dumb, so we've been working on getting space that is permanently wired for making these types of videos at work. It's more challenging than you'd imagine as often we have trouble finding an empty conference room to have a meeting in, much less a room we want to leave empty all the time so nobody messes up our lighting rigs.
Regardless! I love doing videos, and I think I can convince more of the team to get involved, so it's not just me. Not everyone is as excited about being a public face as Yong and I are, though - there is a lot of harassment that comes with being more public.
My 2 month paternity leave ends next week. I'm excited to get back to work!
The only thing that is pathetic is you. If you don't care about the insight videos and how they are made why even comment here? On the other hand, if you do care then Ben Brode is explaining the difficulties that come with setting up the videos on his end so that people can understand what the problems are. Why do you feel you need to comment just to be negative?
Next time don't read the news articles that you think of as 'whining' from the developers and use your time to do something you care about. I don't understand your behavior. The devs don't react to something (a particular question, nerf requests etc.) people aren't happy. The devs react to something and explain problems at their end and people still aren't happy claiming its excuses etc. Please decide what you want.
Hearthstone team is doing something different all the way. They try to be more responsive to the community, they try to talk to us directly, they read our reddit posts and comments. They are trying to be closer, more open, more friendly. And you are being an a-hole, who complains about it.
They are being really honest and open about their insights and situations. Cherish it. Enjoy it. Don't be a dude, who advocates corporate "off-hands" attitude. Like pretty much any other company, that just doesn't say a word between game releases.
People asked a question, he responded truthfully. There's a lot of people out there that wouldn't do so and that alone is nice to have coming from the team. They know its problematic.
Mr. Ben Brode please record a video of half an hour of continious "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA..." :)
Not wishing someone ill, but i would love they hire a dev who test expansions, and knows how to build this meta. Cause how fantastic the expansion is, the meta is rotten to the core, just brainless aggro spam or jade spam, 5 mins later replay.... its crap...
I want an expansion where you can play decent control, things like freeze mage and Miracle, true combo...
I agree with AntonAmby and want to add: it's not the meta's fault, people wanna play stupid aggro decks with fast games. It's just one of the different ways, presented to us by game designers. But this way is easy, relatively cheap and main thing - really fast. I had a 30 minutes renolock-mirror yesterday, in the end I got one star added to my ladder rating. Aggro deck can play 3-4 games in that time. So big amount of people chose. PEOPLE chose it - not developers. They can't forbid players from playing what they like. They can do aggro-deck bad, but that's not exactly the solution, imo.
Let us all pray they never hire you.
Completely agree with the comment about the toxic attitude towards the devs. I mean, I've made criticisms about the state of the game but my god. I've seen some really OTT comments. And not just here but most especially on Twitter-some of the stuff I've seen being tweeted is absolutely disgusting. NO-ONE deserves that. I really don't envy the devs/Blizz reps on Social Media with what they have to put up with. And it's not just with HS either-also WoW. I'm critical at times but I'd never ever post some of the things I've seen.
There's a very fine line between criticism and abusive behavior and an increasing number of people are crossing that line.
I agree with ya 100% except for the last part. There is no "fine line" between constructive criticism and people being complete @ssholes. The line is clear as day and should not be crossed. I hope these people who are harassing the Blizz devs. get the same treatment from others at their place of work!!
Criticism goes to them for faults they did. Shortly after releasing game, there were no one who was complaining. I guess that Dr.Boom was a milestone for criticque towards them because Dr.Boom was a fault and not fixing him afterwards is a fault as well. And this happens with every fault they do not learn from. If they make another expansion with the same type of cards people are complaining at, they will be insulted for it anyway.
If they did a good job, majority of playerbase can't complain at all. There would be maximally minority of complainers but it wouldn't make effect. Many players finished off with HS and almost no-one can begin with it becuase of their philosophy. So problem isn't criticism from playerbase that only shows that something is not good but the dev team. They are responsible for everything touching the game, even for that if majority likes it or not.
Being symphatetic to them is humane and nice but doesn't solve the problem. They have a lot of fixing, revising and new content ahead if they want to be treated as a team that did "good job". Then would you hear more often words like "Well done, team 5/blizz" rather than "Omg, what have you done?". Here will always work rule - what you plant, that you reap(I personally don't know if it's like this in English but I hope it's understandable).
Excuse my English if you are a native speaker.