Hey everyone. Another WoT blog with a far bigger readerbase than mine posted a huge lie, about hypothetical WG EU „purges”, with many people here fired from „incompetence”. In fact, noone did. Beware: huge wall of text ahead.
I am trying not to lie about anything here. (well, maybe the post about SHOJO and MAHOU banned because of lewd image galleries was a lie, it was a very good joke indeed and it got me friends from those clans too 🙂 )
First, we have an opinion from a popular Twitch streamer, Circon:
„Alright,
So i’ve talked a little bit on the stream today to Conway about this. But looking back on this, i’ve been way to easy on taking things on a blog for actual, factual news.
Turns out, nobody got fired from the EU office.
This is just fucked up and felt like more people needed to be informed. Why would you say this to the people you talk to and work together with and meet up with at events?
We all know how i feel about WG/WoT. But it’s almost always about THE GAME and its BALANCE. (and yes i take that to extremes at times.)
BUT, i’ve been really trying to be less negative lately and if i still am, hopefully it’s more global and not aimed at individuals.
Circon.
(The long predicted EU Purge is beginning as a number of EU staff members are fired (allegedly for incompetence)
44 points and 81 comments so far on reddit
REDDIT.COM)
– Circon”
Now, let’s look at some replies from the Reddit thread about the “purges”:
Ectar, known forum mod, posted this (with 162 upvotes btw):
„Straight up lies. Sorry I never wanted to comment on things ever posted in FTR or Status Report and after today I never will however I won’t stand back and see my friends names being dragged through the mud over someone’s petty agenda and constant shit stirring of the EU community. No one in EU has been fired. People have left through their own choices for personal reasons or because they got offers from other companies.
Content like this is coming straight from someone trying to make the EU office look back. The “allegedly incompetence” is straight up bullshit and just another attempt to stir the pot and create controversy which sadly some people will lap up. Really sad to see something like this written from Rita (if it even was Rita) when she knows she can contact myself and Brynd at any time to verify anything she’s unsure about.
I know that there is sometimes where it’s best not to say anything at all, however I won’t stand back and let my friends and workmates take heat for stuff that is straight up lies. I’m sure I’ll regret commenting on this, but I’m not standing for it any longer and I’ll take anything that comes my way as a result of this. I’m not going to sit back and watch the community tear itself apart as it takes everything from an unverified and anonymous source as gospel and absolute truth.
(Edited for formatting. Nothing removed.)
I thought long and hard before writing this and I’m straight up done with never speaking up either in defence of my colleagues or my community of players.”
Now some good old Redditor opinions, also heavily upvoted:
michiganspeed:
„SilentStalker always had an anti-WGEU theme going on FTR… anyone with half a brain could see that. We put up with the personal spin because there was not a good place to get news other than FTR. Rita’s blog while being a “new” entity is heavily influenced by SS. He posts on the site and helps her out, and she even visited him this month. SS works for my.com, a huge competitor for WG… we need to remember this when consuming any content from rita / ss, they are not impartial.
Now the reason we put up with SS and Rita is because they give us information, and fast. This is an area where WG is lacking, mainly because they dont want to comment on rumors. I think WG should post supertest information in a blog format all their own, so we wouldn’t have to go to these sites to get information. As it stands right now however, if we want the latest, most up to date information, we have to put up with the spin and read these blogs. /u/Ectar_ have you heard of anything that could replace these sites? I would love a more official source for this information, but currently we have no place for it.”
RazgrizS57 (Seb: Do not worry, he mocked the shit out of me too when I shared my own articles on Reddit and named this blog a shitty one. But I guess I deserved that back then, along countless downvotes. He seems like a good critic to me):
„The only reason people flock to sites like FTR and Status Report is two fold: obviously the “insider information” which ends up having a large amount of biased opinions dragging it down, even when it comes to things like quotes from developers to add positive/negative connotations; but the second reason is for the historical articles on tanks found in the game, especially the more obscure ones. (Seb: I HAVE THOSE TOO FFS, NOTICE ME SENPAI)
I think it’d be a great thing for Wargaming to capitalize on this. If Wargaming were to publicly disclose, translate, and explain various tank blueprints, projects, and development cycles, it’d not only sate the enthusiast who comes for these sort of things (there’s a lot), but it’d also attract new gamers and to a further extent help the armored vehicle community as a whole. The daily news is really icing on the cake and gives players new things to look forward to.
I would so ditch these fansites in a heartbeat for an official medium to get this information from. Perhaps it can be the main portal, maybe not. If the former, I can’t imagine this happening without some sort of redesign to how news is displayed, however.”
Another comment from Ectar:
„When I was at Denmark this weekend there was also a meeting in Minsk from the different offices. I put forward concerns from the EU side of things and I’m looking forward to see what came out of it. A lot of stuff is difficult to comment on because it’s never clear where it’s from and especially when it was said. – If you take time out to comment on the all the speculation you’ll be doing that all day and more and more people will make stuff up on the basis of “well they didn’t deny it, so it’s happening/there is a chance of it happening”.”
”People are free to leave any job at any time. In 90% of situations this is a personal choice for people based on various reasons. Be it family, money, health, location, salary, responsibility or any other reason for someone to want another job. Whatever the reason it’s something that in all fairness you don’t have any entitlement to know the “why” unless the person involved decides to share it. I would normally never comment on something like this but as both Erissa and Grimbru are good friends, and as I know why they left, I won’t stand aside and let someone spread lies about it.
The community team are the front line of any company and that means we take the hits for everything. All player feedback good or bad comes through us first. That doesn’t mean however we’re responsible for everything.
I’m sorry to hear you have issues with another company, by all means if you feel you can do a better job then step up and apply for one of the current vacancies. If it’s that easy I’m sure you’ll breeze through our interviews and I’ll be happy to work with you.”
”Currently the EU Community team has the following vacancies:
- Polish Community Manager
- Czech Community Manager
Both of the above vacancies are due to internal promotions to other roles.
- German Community Manager
- Czech Community Coordinator
- English Community Coordinator
- English Community Coordinator
These 4 roles are due to employees leaving for other jobs.
A grand total of 4 people have “left” and they left for whatever personal reason that is for them alone to reveal. Normally in the gaming industry people keep things like that to themselves as they want to focus on their new job/role. Rather than 16 there is only 6 current vacancies within EU Community with at least 2 of them due to new opportunities within the company as we continue to grow.
http://wargaming.com/en/careers/vacancies/ – set the location to Paris and department to Community Management for our current vacancies.
Being on community means you take the hits. I joke sometimes that I’m the company riot shield. I accept that part of the job and it’s expected. I’ll take any shit thrown my way and know when to dodge. I won’t stand for people spreading false information about colleague and ex colleagues however. Especially when it’s comments that are potentially damaging to careers and especially when it’s done to create drama and cause tension/aggro in the community.”
„I’m not mad. I’m just not going to sit by and watch stuff being said about our company now turn into something personal with someone trying to damage careers by spreading lies and misinformation.
It’s becoming more and more far fetched each time I read an “insider” post and wouldn’t be surprized if the next one was about Peter Pan and Captain Hook fighting in the EU office. No one has been fired, I said that in my first paragraph. Please read my “salty” comment in it’s entirety before then calling me out.”
milkym4n:
„It is great to see /u/Ectar_ stepping in and clarifying things. Thank you soo much for that.
I have had my issues with Rita’s blog in the past but false information like this just takes the cake. A lot of her posts seem anti-Wargaming and I wouldn’t be surprised if those were actually written by Silentstalker himself. He’s working for my.com and posting such things under Rita’s name would be a pretty good disguise.
Status Report lost all credibility for me so I will stop visiting that site from now on and would like to see links to it banned on this subreddit if false information like this keeps being spread from that site.”
Rita fails again! small info: at the anniversary of WG, i won a bonus code at rita\’s stream. but she never gave it to me. when i asked her about code after 2 weeks, she said me \”dont spam\”. lol
Yeah. Pretty bad. I am sorry for you.
Seb,
I got angry at Rita, because she was insulting Russians in general, and stopped visiting her blog like 2 weeks ago. I have no idea what is happening there, nor I want to visit it. Could you just please tell me WTF is going there? I love both SS and Rita, so these \”news\” are sounding just like someone is at war against them? Please give us some insight. Thanks!
She posted a huge lie and everyone is angry towards her. Beginning with EU Staff members.
Russians are people too. Remember the fact that the USSR was the second world power for most of the Cold War, so they are not stupid at all.
Thanks Seb!
Very nice article and waiting to see how the story develops.
I don\’t get how is she still a community contributor even after all that fake/anti WG \”news\”, racist posts and all other questonable things she posts.
Of the English fan blogs, yours has the best quality and is the least opinionated in my opinion. Your blog may be shit, but it\’s the good kind of shit. <3
Seriously though, I do appreciate all the effort you, Rita, and whoever else puts into getting this information out. But it's a little ridiculous how many people have this "down with Wargaming" mentality, and being fan blogs, those people's voices tend to bleed into the information being put out. I always try to be nice, but it's difficult when it's hard to tell whether or not people are joking anymore. I see no reason why these fan blogs would (or should) dissolve away if Wargaming were to make an official source for the information fans scrounge up, but I'd really like to get my information from the official source itself if possible.
Furthermore, I think a large part of it has to do with how isolated the English World of Tanks community feels from the developers. Obviously, the Russian network is the largest and the developers are Russian themselves, but playing on the North American servers makes me feel less connected to the developers than I'd like to be. It would be great if Wargaming did more to connect to the non-Russian playerbase.
Thank you. I still lack those daily Q&As. That is killing my blog. I try to make up by posting more stuff and being faster.
And the fact there is no WoWS-related blog out there makes my blog unique.
You speak the truth. I am trying to be neutral too (praising WG when they do awesome stuff and making a little whine sometimes)
Thank you for reading my blog. I did not expect to get a response for you!
And – sorry for spamming a long time ago. I have learnt that lesson.
Hey, I think you\’re doing a wonderful job. You got nothing to apologize for as far as I\’m concerned.
Just \”agressive marketing\”. I did that on the old FTR and Ritas blog a long time ago. Only the FTR one was efficient.
This is why I left status report, Rita is a whiny self righteous bitch. SS was tolerable with his anti WG whines because his content was quality but she\’s just so anti WG, anti Russian its disgusting.
Seb is my new senpai <3
Thank you 😉 I started this blog because of her too, she was posting very scarce information at the beginning.
Hey, Seb. Is there a link to the post about this?
I cant seem to find it. Or maybe it\’s been deleted.
Click the reddit link then click the title with \”purge\” in it (it is a link to her article)