devs are 100% more active on discord

You couldn‘t replace Bex if you tried. Many games have CM but Bex is unique. I can‘t imagine finding talent in that field with a deep connection to ARPGs and relocating to NZ is easy

I liked Bex.

But the notion she is totally irreplaceable, and there is not a single qualified individual in NZ, let alone someone at GGG, that could fill the role similarily, is nonsensical imo. Some of the Bex love on these forums & Reddit... is creepy.

It's also pretty dismissive of whomever the team is currently doing the community based outreach, little as it is. That's actually not a shot at Bex, it's more a confidence there are other talented individuals that can do this job if GGG wanted to fill it.

"

kyobusa wrote:

Weren't they bombarded with death/r4p3 threats(especially in Bex's case) from the community because stuff in a video game were nerfed?

Not too surprised.

then you should be surprised that Hello Games (devs of No Man's Sky) who also got D34th Thr34ts and still continued to listen to the feedback people gave them
and look at this the game got really popular and much better than previously shown in the trailers lol

i dont want them to tear down everything they've built but a little bit more engagement with honest feedback on THIS forum (which is official no?) by people who put lots of time and thought into it, but nope they're listening to some streamers reddit and unofficial discord
its their "free" time right? :D

"

DarthSki44 wrote:

I liked Bex.

But the notion she is totally irreplaceable, and there is not a single qualified individual in NZ, let alone someone at GGG, that could fill the role similarily, is nonsensical imo. Some of the Bex love on these forums & Reddit... is creepy.

It's also pretty dismissive of whomever the team is currently doing the community based outreach, little as it is. That's actually not a shot at Bex, it's more a confidence there are other talented individuals that can do this job if GGG wanted to fill it.

I didn't say you can't hire a new CM. I didn't say there's no one qualified in NZ. I didn't dismiss anyone working the marketing side of GGG, but do you know the names of any of them? I don't. I doubt most of the playerbase does.

Yes, the people who start petitions to bring Bex back are weird. I'm sure she still gets messages on her socials about it too and that's creepy as well.

The bottom line of my post is that when someone like Bex has worked that job for 10+ years, the new person will be held to the high standard she has set. It seems you read the first sentence of my post and skipped the rest, which I find hard to believe since it was only 3 sentences, but oh boy here we are again Darth...

"

DarthSki44 wrote:

[...]
It will be interesting to see how the marketing blitz on PoE2 with this sort of arms length policy, will work. Will they relax it? Mark and Jonathan only? Anything similar to then D4 campfire chats? (Doubtful)

Somewhat related, the Community PoE2 link right now links to nothing.

Can we hope for a forum update for the (early access) release of PoE2 ?

(Did these forums already exist when PoE1 was in closed beta ? Were at least some of them open ?)

"

BlueTemplar85 wrote:

"

DarthSki44 wrote:

[...]
It will be interesting to see how the marketing blitz on PoE2 with this sort of arms length policy, will work. Will they relax it? Mark and Jonathan only? Anything similar to then D4 campfire chats? (Doubtful)

Somewhat related, the Community PoE2 link right now links to nothing.

Can we hope for a forum update for the (early access) release of PoE2 ?

(Did these forums already exist when PoE1 was in closed beta ? Were at least some of them open ?)

Yes the forums existed during the CB. And the devs were quite active. It was a good time truthfully. Such a thing isn't meant to last, but reflecting on it is nice from time to time. Innocence lost and all that...

CW actually created the Reddit sub. Both have since been abandoned from a Dev standpoint, and very limited at all really, aside from the news feed here. It's bare minimum contact right now I'd say.

I have no idea what they have planned for PoE2. Hence my post. If it's just a feedback sub-forum, and a news feed, that's probably a mistake imo, but it's too early to tell.

That said I'm still highly doubtful on something formal and consistent. Which is interesting. I mean consider how well D4 has performed with their devs chats and a PTR in advance of big patches. I think GGG should at least take notice on how helpful large scale feedback and communication can be.

*I suppose EA is sorta a PTR but I don't expect that to continue post-release. I'm also curious, although it's probably semantics, what's the difference between EA and a Beta is to GGG.

"

ArtCrusade wrote:

"

DarthSki44 wrote:

I liked Bex.

But the notion she is totally irreplaceable, and there is not a single qualified individual in NZ, let alone someone at GGG, that could fill the role similarily, is nonsensical imo. Some of the Bex love on these forums & Reddit... is creepy.

It's also pretty dismissive of whomever the team is currently doing the community based outreach, little as it is. That's actually not a shot at Bex, it's more a confidence there are other talented individuals that can do this job if GGG wanted to fill it.

I didn't say you can't hire a new CM. I didn't say there's no one qualified in NZ. I didn't dismiss anyone working the marketing side of GGG, but do you know the names of any of them? I don't. I doubt most of the playerbase does.

Yes, the people who start petitions to bring Bex back are weird. I'm sure she still gets messages on her socials about it too and that's creepy as well.

The bottom line of my post is that when someone like Bex has worked that job for 10+ years, the new person will be held to the high standard she has set. It seems you read the first sentence of my post and skipped the rest, which I find hard to believe since it was only 3 sentences, but oh boy here we are again Darth...

Your defensive posts, and repeated contradicts are often quite confusing tbh. Fortunately people can just scroll up and read.

It's legitimately wild that you actually wrote "Bex cannot be replaced if you tried", then claim that's not what you said.

If you can find a replacement in NZ why would they have to "relocate"?

They created a "community team" not because of a lack of talent, but because of how toxic the community is. CW didn't want someone to wear that target publicly. And actually, he was probably right to do it. Don't conflate that with a larger conclusion on the availability of someone to fill that role.

I repeat. Bex is 100% replaceable. (No shade to her, it's just reality)

Normally, a 'beta' is when all the (main) features are already in, and what mostly remains is bugtesting.
(Compared to 'alpha', when not even all the main features are in, or even locked to be in the release.)

However, did GGG mention anything about an «open beta» (different from «early access») ? I don't think they're using the terms in your normal sense, that «closed beta» might actually not be feature-complete (?), and they used the therm «closed beta» to have a term that felt 'stronger', to differentiate with «early access» ?

D3/D4's Public Test Realms are quite unique for open betas in being very time-limited AFAIK, less than a week ?
Also, typically open betas do not erase player data at the end (PoE1's closed beta ending and open beta starting was the last time it happened), while at lest D4's PTRs do ?

Uh, because that's what you need to do to be eligible to work in NZ? Labor laws, company policy, yada yada. What I meant with "you couldnt replace her if you tried" (and rationalizing that statement in the part you still ignore) is that she was a one of a kind CM. I have played many games over the years and I couldn't remember any of the CMs from those games if you held a gun to my head. It was an appreciative statement, not what you make it out to be.

Now you can triple down on your understanding of that 1 sentence or you can accept the 2nd explanation, I've had my fill. o/

Sigh*

They wouldn't have to relocate if it was just a NZ based hire in the first place. In fact NZ laws are quite strict that they have to exhaust many NZ options first before even attempting a foreign hire.

Anyways it's clear we are both exhausted by this exchange, on a relatively silly topic, so we can conclude this back and forth.