We should've been less harsh on Chris

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titiAlf#7546 wrote:

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Ondrashek06#5795 wrote:

...we are still yet to see a statement or fix for the recent server issues.

He recently mentioned in interview (Dropped Frames) that EU servers are targeted by DDOS attack and they are looking into ways of mitigation.

Ahh, thanks for letting me know. Yeah, if it's a DDoS, there's not really much that GGG can do about it. I hope that they'll stop in the near future.

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Crîmnor#4334 wrote:

Who is this "we" you're talking about? You don't speak for me.

No, they can’t - which is probably why they never attempted to do so.

Had they stated “Chris, we’re sorry for how we treated you” then, sure - that would have been attempting to speak for you; it’s not for OP to decide how you feel. But they’re entitled to an opinion on how a community at large has behaved, and that is the only thing they’ve expressed.

Video game communities in general are very toxic toward their devs, and that's a problem. It's like if all those jerks that yelled at the waiter and demanded to see the manager over something trivial all collectively grabbed a megaphone and were screaming 24/7.

This may be influenced by video games being a market with some of the weakest consumer protections, so it's not all to be blamed on malcontents, though.

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kaijyuu2#0256 wrote:

Video game communities in general are very toxic toward their devs, and that's a problem. It's like if all those jerks that yelled at the waiter and demanded to see the manager over something trivial all collectively grabbed a megaphone and were screaming 24/7.

This may be influenced by video games being a market with some of the weakest consumer protections, so it's not all to be blamed on malcontents, though.

Exactly. I'm not saying that Kalandra was a good league with its nerfs and everything, but people should've really stayed constructive and not do the wild shit like calling for Chris to resign or the entire thing with a PoE streamer calling him a "bald r***rd".

I'm also not saying that the community's behavior was the entire reason for Chris to leave, but I think it at least contributed to that a bit.

Don't care who it is. If you suppose you know what your customers want more than the customers themselves you're going out of business.

"Ask not what your customers should want. Ask what your customers do want."

That should be an etched stone tablet on the wall of the studio.

And if different customers have different demands, which do you choose? The customers that are the most numerous? The customers that are the loudest?

Trying to democratize a product is why 90% of stuff targets 51% of the market, leaving more niche customers high and dry.

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kaijyuu2#0256 wrote:

Trying to democratize a product is why 90% of stuff targets 51% of the market, leaving more niche customers high and dry.

I would assume that more often than not, it is the "niche" audience that really cares about the product that's usually "loudest". The rest just play casually and never visit the forums or Reddit. You could also bring forth the argument that these are the people worth listening to, because those are the people that really cares and who will stick with your product. Only speculating here, of course.

Now, I would say that PoE2 is WAY(!) more targeted towards the masses than PoE1 ever was. The passive tree is shallow and narrow, with almost no option for each class. The skills are the same. Both are more or less handholding you into narrow paths or options, which doesn't require thinking, research or dedication. Which is fine, all games can't be as complicated as PoE1 is, especially as we're living in 2025, and most things gets "solved" and shared within days.

PoE1 had identity. It stood out from the masses and offered something else. PoE2 does not, and is very close to D4 and other options in a lot of areas. It happens to be new and shiny - it won't be forever.

Anyhow, there's no point in making a new game if they were going to make it "the same". I just wish they did what they said they would do and support both games. Chris talked a lot about that, how both games would have their own leagues, be supported and had a great future. He is gone, and there's seemingly no one at GGG that cares about PoE1 - which is sad as fuck.

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kaijyuu2#0256 wrote:

And if different customers have different demands, which do you choose? The customers that are the most numerous? The customers that are the loudest?

Trying to democratize a product is why 90% of stuff targets 51% of the market, leaving more niche customers high and dry.

You choose the audience that has grown and stuck with you for all those years growing your tiny garage studio into a financial and growing success story.

What you don't do is sacrifice that relationship for the promise of a better one. That's the "modern audience" fallacy. Hollywood tried it and failed. AAA game studios tried it and failed.

At this point I'm fairly certain it was always Pravda intended to despose of western companies and replace them with eastern ones.

Longtime, hardcore fans would be ones playing since before 1.0. And back then, the game more resembled modern PoE2 than it does modern PoE1.

The cynic in me thinks that one way to start a gaming company is to make a niche product that the diehard fans would pay a lot for to get it made, and then once a working game is made it could be morphed slowly into something with mass appeal instead, leaving the original backers behind. I'm not really accusing GGG of doing this, or at least I don't think they're doing it deliberately. But once the suits upstairs get control and want things to make more money, there's a lot of pressure in that direction.


As a disclaimer, I like modern PoE1 with zoomy gameplay and lootsplosions. I don't think I would've liked original PoE at all had I played it back then. It's just that I understand why a developer might have a "vision" they want to stick to so their product continues to target the core, niche audience instead of morphing into targeting the largest consumer base. We've got more than enough stuff trying to appeal to the least common denominator already.

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kaijyuu2#0256 wrote:

Longtime, hardcore fans would be ones playing since before 1.0. And back then, the game more resembled modern PoE2 than it does modern PoE1.

The cynic in me thinks that one way to start a gaming company is to make a niche product that the diehard fans would pay a lot for to get it made, and then once a working game is made it could be morphed slowly into something with mass appeal instead, leaving the original backers behind. I'm not really accusing GGG of doing this, or at least I don't think they're doing it deliberately. But once the suits upstairs get control and want things to make more money, there's a lot of pressure in that direction.


As a disclaimer, I like modern PoE1 with zoomy gameplay and lootsplosions. I don't think I would've liked original PoE at all had I played it back then. It's just that I understand why a developer might have a "vision" they want to stick to so their product continues to target the core, niche audience instead of morphing into targeting the largest consumer base. We've got more than enough stuff trying to appeal to the least common denominator already.

One cannot really compare 2012/13 to todays gaming landscape and I think that's one reason why GGG is struggling right now. They try to remake PoE like they did in 2011, without realizing that alot has changed.
Back then, there was barely any YT content for games. There was no Trade webside or indexers, u had to manually sift through forum threads to find items.
The systems that PoE introduced worked in that environment.

Nowadays u cannot have a "crafting" system that is purely RNG and hope ppl would use exalts to gamble on stuff instead of just alt+tab to an automated indexer that would find them an upgrade within seconds. The same goes for build variety and balance... news travel fast nowadays and when broken stuff gets discovered it takes merely a few hours before most people know about it.

I hope GGG realizes that and change some of their philosophies, whatever that means. Right now it feels like a new game, made by people who were locked away for 10 years. (and it shouldn't, because they have the experience from PoE1)