Dev Harassment is concerning

[Packetdancer]

most game devs are overworked and working crunch times is insane for them

I had a week where I worked two 36-hour-straight shifts due to crunch time, and this was at a company that generally did not do crunch. I fell asleep for a few hours in my office because I was too tired to go home, and I lived literally across the street from the office. I could see my apartment from the window I sat by. I do not think I was writing particularly good code by the end, and I definitely know I was commenting said code in haiku. (Yes, I'm serious. I and my co-workers doing the same crunch had crossed some sort of transcendental sleep deprivation event horizon and were absolutely functioning in an altered state of mind by the end.)

To this day, I could not tell you how the network replication code I wrote that week works. It did work, but I have no freakin' clue how. And while I don't know what SQEX's crunch time situation is or isn't, I can absolutely understand dumb mistakes being made under deadline pressure.

ANYWAY.

Expressing displeasure with the company's actions -- or perceived carelessness, or anything else -- is perfectly reasonable and justified. I tend towards a more measured approach, but that's admittedly because I've been on the other side of that divide and seen how easily stuff like this happens, especially in a large codebase that's been live for the better part of a decade and touched by countless different programmers, not all of whom are necessarily still at the company. (And if crunch time is a factor as well...) There's a breathtaking number of potential failure points, and very few game studios -- heck, very few software companies -- adhere to what I would now consider a solid test methodology. (Many have excellent QA teams, but the companies tend to approach QA by validating that a feature works when you follow the intended steps, not by the test engineering method of having a comprehensive test matrix and running through every cell of that matrix to see if a feature fails when other seemingly-unrelated factors are introduced. The first method is much faster, but also much more likely to let stuff slip through.)

Just because I can see how something can go wrong doesn't make it acceptable, though; this was a feature that was seemingly insufficiently tested and rolled out more hastily than it should have been. (To be fair, if they'd delayed it to do more thorough testing, I think there'd also be rage and ire on the forums, albeit a different type of rage and ire.)

People have a right to be upset, and to express that upset by posting to demand answers as to what happened, or by unsubscribing to show that they no longer have faith in the developer or interest in the game.

But there have been some posts here -- and waaaaaaay more in Other Parts of the Internet (like the one represented by a blue bird that seems the embodiment of despair and proclamations of doom -- no, not that one, I meant Twitter) -- that start to get to an area where, where I on the dev team, I might start to feel uncomfortable. Not all threaten violence -- even if some do -- but there have been more than a few out there where folks have said things like that the lottery was "a scam" and that the individual developers who worked on the feature should be taken to court and fined (or jailed?!) because it was actual fraud. (Cue "...that's not how this works! That's not how any of this works!" meme.)

And while OP went into some sort of Total Nuclear Emotional Forum-Spamming Meltdown there (also: yikes), there is some validity to at least the general gist of the initial post: people don't have to be making actual literal death threats to still be crossing a line in a manner that's... y'know, let's go with "maybe not entirely reasonable or appropriate to the severity of the situation".

Hold the company responsible, sure. Firmly request (or demand) an explanation of where the failure of process happened that led to this situation. Vote with your wallets and unsubscribe if you feel you can no longer support the company; that's a completely fair way to feel, and I don't think anyone will say otherwise.

But speaking from my own past experience, I can tell you that when the dev team I was on got weird over-the-top threats because people didn't like a change we made to multiplayer PvP balance on a game, the experience did not particularly make me feel more motivated to go out and make posts explaining why the changes were made. (E.g., "because the old stuff was being used to cheat, and we wanted to make it so people were not cheating".) It made me feel motivated to ignore them all and delete my bookmarks to any forums involved. And sure, they weren't the majority of players, but they were the loudest. Which made them irritatingly hard to ignore.

Press the company for answers. Unsubscribe. Whatever you feel needs to be done. But try to focus it on the company not on... like... demanding the individual developers be held accountable for deliberate fraud or whatever.

[Packetdancer]

Basically you can't actually reach developers even if you want unless they are willing to communicate with you (very unlikely).

You would be surprised how many individual developers will read the forums about the games they work on, whether or not they actively post there. It's sometimes useful to get a sense of what players like and don't like.

(Admittedly, you would probably not be surprised by how many individual developers eventually stop reading the forums about the games they work on.)

There is a game-related product which I work on (hardware, since these days I work in embedded systems rather than at a game company directly) where I actively hang out on the forums for it and basically pretend to be just another poster. (Much to the continued amusement of the project lead.) But seeing stuff there does give me an idea for what things might need to be tweaked, and also has let me give folks tech support (under the guise of just being an experienced user of said gaming product). But I've also seen people who have a bug (or want a feature) to post nuclear meltdown threads demanding it and threatening that "the dev team better listen to their users or else", and I promise you that when I encounter those... well, like I said, you probably wouldn't be surprised how many individual developers eventually stop reading the forums.

(I always go back, eventually, but...)

This may be less relevant for FFXIV than some, given the potential language barrier, but I'd still be surprised if the number of folks on the team who read these forums -- even if they just silently lurk -- was zero.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Its already been stated earlier by a poster but lets stop with the unneccesary tl;dr trying to justify terrible behavior.

Are you personally attacking the devs and sending death threats when your providing feedback? Then stop.

If not then its A-Ok to point out your thoughts no matter what.

[Insertusernamehere]

You would be surprised how many individual developers will read the forums about the games they work on, whether or not they actively post there. It's sometimes useful to get a sense of what players like and don't like.

(Admittedly, you would probably not be surprised by how many individual developers eventually stop reading the forums about the games they work on.)

There is a game-related product which I work on (hardware, since these days I work in embedded systems rather than at a game company directly) where I actively hang out on the forums for it and basically pretend to be just another poster. (Much to the continued amusement of the project lead.) But seeing stuff there does give me an idea for what things might need to be tweaked, and also has let me give folks tech support (under the guise of just being an experienced user of said gaming product). But I've also seen people who have a bug (or want a feature) to post nuclear meltdown threads demanding it and threatening that "the dev team better listen to their users or else", and I promise you that when I encounter those... well, like I said, you probably wouldn't be surprised how many individual developers eventually stop reading the forums.

(I always go back, eventually, but...)

This may be less relevant for FFXIV than some, given the potential language barrier, but I'd still be surprised if the number of folks on the team who read these forums -- even if they just silently lurk -- was zero.

If it is true I am surprised tbh.. I am developer (not a game developer sadly) my self but I don't read any kind of feed back unless it is coming from lead dev's room. If they are doing it kudos to them for their passionate work.

[Packetdancer]

If it is true I am surprised tbh.. I am developer (not a game developer sadly) my self but I don't read any kind of feed back unless it is coming from lead dev's room. If they are doing it kudos to them for their passionate work.

I mean, it varies from developer to developer; I have friends at places like Adobe who work on things like Photoshop or Illustrator and hang out on the help forums. I think it's more common with game developers, admittedly, because it's a career that folks generally get into -- and stay in -- for passion; they're almost always gamers themselves and so want to make games. (Lord knows most don't stay in the field for the pay, which is generally Not Great compared to other tech fields.) And that can often mean wanting to see what your fellow gamers are saying about the game you work on. (Plus, I mean, if it's a big enough game, even if you aren't reading the official forums for your game -- if applicable -- the only way you can entirely avoid people's opinions about it would be to avoid all gaming news sites, Twitter, gaming subreddits, etc. If you're a gamer yourself, you probably participate in those things anyway, even if only for other games you play...)

But that's sort of tangential to the discussion.

[Insertusernamehere]

I mean, it varies from developer to developer; I have friends at places like Adobe who work on things like Photoshop or Illustrator and hang out on the help forums. I think it's more common with game developers, admittedly, because it's a career that folks generally get into -- and stay in -- for passion; they're almost always gamers themselves and so want to make games. (Lord knows most don't stay in the field for the pay, which is generally Not Great compared to other tech fields.) And that can often mean wanting to see what your fellow gamers are saying about the game you work on. (Plus, I mean, if it's a big enough game, even if you aren't reading the official forums for your game -- if applicable -- the only way you can entirely avoid people's opinions about it would be to avoid all gaming news sites, Twitter, gaming subreddits, etc. If you're a gamer yourself, you probably participate in those things anyway, even if only for other games you play...)

But that's sort of tangential to the discussion.

I am not sure how SE handling this. From my job perspective, it doesn't matter if a user's feed back good or bad.. it is lead developer (and company representative) decides what to do, so I don't see any point reading any feedback.. we do whatever lead tell us to do nothing more, nothing less..

But I imagine it is different in game development, so probably SE doing things differently.

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

I hope you realize that your valid point (the devs do not deserve death threats or anything of the sort) is buried under the fact you're a one man clown show and hold valid critique and criticism on the same pedestal as sending a knife to the devs and threatening to harm them or their families.

My dude, you help absolutely no one by going off on unhinged rants against perfectly polite posters.

This thread is a trainwreck.

[Kozh]

In all seriousness, where do people get to see the death threats? Never seen one in Twitter, reddit, nor the Forum. Perhaps in PF? I haven't checked there.

Also, maybe because I watch angryJoe, so I don't feel anyone is overly harsh with the devs. I mean, no one is saying "devs, you f****king troglodytes, you better fix this shit asap or I'll *insert violent threats here*".

Dunno, just me.

[Floortank]

They do deserve criticism for many of the decisions made recently. But that's where it should stay. Criticisms of decisions. Not calling their intelligence, professionalism, or ability into question. It's their job to make the game, but it's not your job to play it.

[SturmChurro]

In all seriousness, where do people get to see the death threats? Never seen one in Twitter, reddit, nor the Forum. Perhaps in PF? I haven't checked there.

They do get death threats, it's just not very common. The problem is any and all criticism then gets thrown out the window, because of these threats by a few people.