I think really it’s important to realize people can and will get angry over things that anger them.
I never look at anger as a problem, getting mad is an emotional response like any other, people get angry when they are ignored or have things forced upon them; people show joy when they feel their concerns have been listened too; it’s the same ballpark and actions here have those reactions, and more.
I am not advocating violet or hateful speech, but it’s important to see past the anger displayed in ones post and take it into consideration with the words they’re saying - not their tone, which I’ve seen to have a lot of good points, but are ignored because of aggressiveness. I usually look at anger as humor, this alleviates the problem for me.
Realistically I dislike the upcoming update with bodycolors, it’s a cultural thing and since I’ve been here since 2008 I’m so atoned to body colors being vibrant and beautiful that it kind of angers me to see something so iconic be taken away with nothing more than a warning. In this regard some users have argued points saying “hey, they gave a warning and told us how to get around it when it comes!”, but to me, that is not a solution, that’s dodging responsibilities.
I think one of the major reasons people are angry is because this forum was originally created to allow experienced users and creators to voice feedback about upcoming changes, as well as suggest new ideas and ways to improve; unfortunately, given the past few months (or years should I say), this has no longer been the case. The lack of communication and corporate level decisions render this forums original purpose, essentially unnecessary.
It’s important to remember that the people who develop this platform don’t get to make whatever they want, everything they do is decided on the corporate level first; and the corporate level is so distanced from the platform that their decisions rarely affect them directly; ROBLOX has gone from being a basement college project by Mr Bazooka to a big enterprise; it would be understandable if he has hardly any involvement in game play or developing the platform at all, aside from making decisions in the companies interests; decisions that don’t necessarily reflect our feedback.
My $.02 is that you’re using income as a rationalization for something that would have happened regardless. ROBLOX community has always been very vocal about things they care about - my assessment is that the reaction to certain updates hasn’t changed too much since DevEx got introduced. Particularly, it’s strange to think of body color selection as something that would affect your income - be assured the platform as a whole won’t stop growing because of body color choices.
As somebody who sometimes has to discuss certain updates or features or lack thereof with you guys I do think the community could have been more civil sometimes. There are many things we care about deeply, but what’s important is to be able to have a discussion that does not turn into hate speech.
And good things take a looooot of time to develop. Smooth terrain was a hack week 2013 project. It took around 1.5 years to ship (there was heavy R&D involved after the hack week - the version we shipped is much better than the initial prototype), and then 1 more year to update to make it truly practical on all platforms and to have more features.
Lighting is in the same camp. Heavy R&D first, lots of detail work to ship later, and probably more updates post-ship.
Here’s something that I taught myself years ago which may be useful to some people.
If you want to post a reply to something that deeply upsets you, you:
Open Notepad
Type your reply
Walk away from the computer for some time (this gets shorter over time)
Get back to the computer, read your reply, and - usually - close Notepad without saving
Open the reply window and type another, reasonable and rational response.