The Devs aren't your personal friends and valid criticism isn't "harrassment"

[Kranel_San]

It saddens me to see some people using the extreme harassment (Death threats and physical harm) as an excuse to cover the devs mistakes and to say you don't have the right to criticize, that they're human and they make mistakes, and this bla bla bla nonsense.
However, I think everyone is aware of that and agrees on the matter that extreme harassment does not represent any side or community regardless of whence it comes from, and most players would prefer to just criticize, which involves noting the decreased quality of the game in the form of many controversial decisions and mistakes such as 75% of the wards going to FCs, Hrothgars chopped ears, the housing bug, etc.
I highly support the players going out and stating their dislike. You're a customer, and the game is a product. It happens everywhere when people get angry at a product that does not meet the expectations or when bugs that should not have escaped the testing phase because it's a natural reaction. A business firm should not rely on people understanding and going easy on them but instead should work hard on meeting the expectations.
Giving excuses to devs is like going to a well-known restaurant and finding shattered glass in your food. You or anyone won't say: "Hey it's okay. They make mistakes too." but instead would say: "Why is there broken glass in my food?" because you know this is a mistake that should not been allowed to reach the customer. Same thing with games and the devs are not an exception to criticism.
If you're a dev, a manager, a designer, or the whole business firm and you want people to go easy on you, then it's better you quit.

[PharisHanasaki]

Fortunately, at least on the forums, there seems to be a larger amount of civil and constructive criticism that I’ve seen than threats or harassment.

Really? I've seen mostly angry people spitting words, so their post become unintelligible. Constructive critisism is giving valid arguments, or possible ways to improve said situation. "Firing everyone involved" is not a solution, it may be a consecuence, but definitely not critisism.

[kpxmanifesto]

The Devs aren't your personal friends and valid criticism isn't "harrassment"

Lol, the title of your thread is very reminiscent of parasocial relationships on twitch.

[LittleImp]

Please show me four examples of someone on these forums saying "X person has received death threats, so do not ever criticize anything about them ever again". I'll refrain from commenting further until that is provided.

False or exaggerated allegations of death threats are used constantly to try to mischaracterize opposition in a negative way. This is not unique to the 14 community by any means. Demanding examples of people essentially admitting that they are acting in bad faith is laughable.

[Theodric]

It's a pretty disingenuous tactic to point at a few isolated cases of people sending death threats and then trying to tie them to every bit of criticism sent in the direction of the development team. Incidentally, it's little different to the same sort of gaslighting and manipulation deployed by politicians and media personalities as if one or two extremists are every truly representative of an entire movement.

It's good to see a lot more people waking up in the face of such overused and very deceptive tactics, though. Especially when the death threats themselves are not taking place on this particular platform.

If nothing else, if people are sending death threats on Twitter then get in touch with the authorities. That's far more useful than trying to lecture people on a completely different platform as far as I'm concerned.

If you don't want to do it yourselves, then by all means link them here so somebody else can do as much.

[Ascended_Demon]

I feel like it's worth saying that even if it is happening, you ultimately accomplish nothing by telling people who did not participate in sending death threats that it is happening and they need to tone it down because you are not helping the victims in the attack in any way by telling someone who did no such thing to stop. All you do is achieve some self satisfaction in that you told someone to cool it for airing their grievances. Please know who you are addressing your concerns to and for what reason. Is this person wishing harm upon others? Do they in any way, shape, or form personally attack the other party? Stop derailing conversations in areas that had nothing to do with this issue with the death threat scapegoat because it is not helpful.

[CrownySuccubus]

False or exaggerated allegations of death threats are used constantly to try to mischaracterize opposition in a negative way. This is not unique to the 14 community by any means. Demanding examples of people essentially admitting that they are acting in bad faith is laughable.

This doesn't address what I said. Please show examples of people doing and saying the thing you quoted.

I feel like it's worth saying that even if it is happening, you ultimately accomplish nothing by telling people who did not participate in sending death threats that it is happening and they need to tone it down because you are not helping the victims in the attack in any way by telling someone who did no such thing to stop. All you do is achieve some self satisfaction in that you told someone to cool it for airing their grievances.

You can always report the people who do it and get them out of the conversation, by either getting them banned. At the very least, you avoid tarnishing actual conversation of legitimate problems with toxic people.

[Semirhage]

The "death threats" bit was related to someone on the Japanese forums. I believe someone mailed a developer a knife after raging about SAM changes. That incident is what Yoshi was talking about.

[Krotoan]

The recent issues such as housing, hrothgars, healing, or lack of job depth are all valid points of concern.

"But death threats" what death threats? This always gets brought up in this discussion when people in the community have issues with something in the game, yet there is never any of these type of comments in criticism thread. It's a baseless scapegoat that is constantly used to dismiss points of discussion and criticism.

These people need to stop taking these valid points of criticism as a personal attack to themselves nor do they need to find every excuse to let them slide. We are paying for a service and they are paid to provide a service.

Those are absolutely valid concerns. None of which are helped by calling the people involved in their implementation "idiots", "Incompetent", or talking about how their mistakes should never have been made. There is a line between abuse and criticism.

[Ath192]

It saddens me to see people try to rationalize and justify their hatred. We all know what acceptable societal behavior looks like. We know what polite and constructive criticism looks like.

If you say hey I really don’t like this or that for X reason. Can you please fix X issue. Hello dev team I feel like we are not being heard and we are very upset. I am unsubbing for this and this reason.

That’s all okay.

What is not okay is insulting others, comparing them to other people who are widely hated in society and running your mouth like what you are saying is not going to reach another human being on the other side of the screen.

Some of the stuff you guys say you wouldn’t even tell them to a stranger, but somehow you feel it’s okay to tell it to the developers of a game you have enjoyed? I’m sorry but that’s damn right abusive and you should know that.

At the end of the day intention matters, and people who want to hate because they feel something didn’t go their way should not be encouraged. If you got something to say, say your piece like you are decent human being and leave it at that.