Who says it's about facts

Today I'll poke a phrase I keep seeing around in blue posts here and there, and that is giving me the serious heebiejeebies.

It normally comes by phrased into something like this:

"Is this something you just 'feel' like is reality or do you have facts?"

As if it matters?

Is it less important if it is about feelings? Are player feelings less important than statistics? If a large part of the player population feels that something is not enjoyable, then I would say that this is a rather important signal that something needs changing.

I get that as a blue poster you get tired of the raging community sometimes. Tired of explaining over and over that you cannot go change stuff just because the people who speak up demand it so. Because for every person who opens their mouth and complains, there might be 10 silently enjoying.

I get it, I really do.

But this just feels like sending players off with nothing...

Not to mention, Blizz keeps coming with statements like:

'We wanted the players to feel as if the world is more populated.'
'We want players to experience how big the world is.'
' Mana pools can still be large (we are thinking 100,000 mana at level 85) so that it doesn’t feel too bizarre to existing casters and doesn’t feel too much like rage or energy. '

Of course it is about feelings, of course it isn't all about facts! The whole game is built around how people experience the game.

What is part of the issue here is the difference between how people actually feel, and how people think they feel.

Say what now, Shy? There is a difference?

Yeah, there sure is, and I'll try to explain as best as I can, though I am not a psychologist.

I assume you must have felt super angry at some point in your life. So angry that you wanted to (or maybe even did) smash something?

If you look back, was the true emotion anger? Or was it maybe disappointment? Was it maybe the feeling of being let down? Maybe you felt deceived?

Often anger is not the true emotion, often anger is only the resulting emotion, the underlying one is something else.

I believe that this is what is quite often happening at the forums as well. Players are all pissed off, shouting that they will leave the game, boo bah, etc

But what they truly feel is disappointment. Disappointed that their class is not performing as well as they had hoped. Let down by Blizzard because that item that they had hoped for so long did once again not drop (fault of the loot system and the designers of course), disappointment that their mount flaps in a wrong way, disappointed because their expectations were not met by the reality.

Expectations not met by reality...

Makes me wonder if it really is good of Blizzard to do as much previewing as they are, since the bigger picture can rarely be seen by the one player.

But, even when the anger is not the true emotion, it does feel like Blizzard needs to stop discarding the feelings of the posters. Channeling that energy into other activity would maybe be better, not sure, as said beofre, I am not a psychologist. I don't have the facts.

I do feel that I am getting quite tired of Blizzard asking facts from disappointed players though...