The threat to stay silent

Most professional and safe approach is to remain silent and withdraw.

Honestly, what would you do in their place? ...and dont give me the "id fix the game"... at this point that isnt even the issue anymore.

Some of our community took it upon themselves to reach out to and harass these people on a personal level.. What would you do if some work customer tracked you down at home to berate you?

They could have deleted your class and everything you ever had it wouldn't justify these actions. Whoever these fools were they should be banned and obliterated from the community, permanently, there is no excuse for this, none.

I honestly did not appreciate being lumped into whatever an individual or individuals did to the Developer and being threatened by Bioware Austin. That should have been handled privately with an investigation. What instead happened was an indirect admission by Bioware Austin that both the community and the company are at quite an odds with eachother and BOTH are hostile to eachother.

You know what? I guess I view a threat as something dangerous to my health. If Eric or any devs decided to remain silent in the future due to innapropriate conduct on behalf of some of the members of the forum community, and, they told us so... That's a threat to you people?

The bigger issue is some misguided, immature individuals took the time to TRACK down this guy, and find ways to even make threats against his family etc., due to things he said about a class on a computer game!

What is wrong with some people nowadays? Holy... If I was that dev, I would never type another word on these forums, again. And, I wouldn't bother telling anyone either. Seeing it's viewed as a threat and all. ROFL.

What a joke. Some of you people take things personally when you shouldn't, you were not the one that was tracked down and attacked via social media along with your family. That's crazy and I hope the police follow up on it.

wouldnt you get a little hostile if they called you at home to complain about your play?

From the beginning of the game, I was surprised that devs used their real names. If it were up to me, I would stop using real names. If I worked for BW and they told me to post on these forums with my real name, I'd say "ummmm no. Bye." *goes to find a new job*

This.

Musco didn't threat. He simply said that was the alternative. There is no other alternative. Silence has been the status quo since the game went F2P, hence its perpetually downward spiral. This community and its dismissive and apathetic attitude doesn't help. That a developer chose to come forward and explain themselves shows they were—for once—making a damned honest effort to achieve some transparency, and he was spit in the face over it. Rather than parlay with the DEVs for a chance at some dialogue and constructive criticism, a few took things too far, and now everyone wonders why the DEVs stayed silent for so long. We're to blame. We own how we represent ourselves on these message boards, and unlike a piece of paper, it sticks. You can't burn this; you can't make it go away. This very toxic community has a reputation that precedes it; that expectation needs rectified if there's ever to be any meaningful dialogue about the future of this game.

Your subscription does not require the developers to post their design philosophy on a public forum. If the developers cannot post without them and their families being threatened, then they simply won't post.

The fact people are missing that and calling it a threat is beyond absurd. It shows how toxic the community is where we are willing to call it a threat when the developers don't want to post because they and their families are being actively harassed. How dare you not put yourself in harm's way!

You feel threatened because your wil is not fullfilled. You sound very narcistic.

I bet you would feel threatened by me if I declared in public to stay silent.

Me, I don't feel threatened at all by the posts of the developers.

I get bitter over time, but that is because I feel rarther threatened by PLAYERS LIKE YOU.
But I don't get bitter over reactions of developers.

Grow up. Get a life.

I'd do so after seeing MY FAMILY being attacked. Plus, I'd call the police.

It's sad that people are actually mixing internet forums with RL. Sad.

Good question.