Iron Docks, Dev Interview, Blue Tweets, Setup of the Month, Ghostcrawler on WoW

Originally Posted by Trassk

I just hate the attitude of douchebags like Greg Street, who thinks elitist hard mode is the only thing that matters and screw anyone else, anyone else who isn't an elitist hardcore player is a 'grandmother'.

Dude you are putting way to much into it, that is not what he said at all.... Geez man, jut calm down and read eveything and don't make assumptions based on a few words.

What it feels like is Activision laying in Blizz devs to make the game more accessible to grand ma's which aggravated a lot of devs that wanted to make a game worth playing as opposed to the current "faceroll see all content" model that's supposed to attract more subs. Quantity over Quality of players is just too bad.

I'm not a hardcore player (never cleared the original Naxx, Didn't kill clear Sunwell)but I wouldn't be butthurt if I didn't see some content because I (or the group)wasn't good enough for it. That's how it is in life. It appears a lot of people feel they deserve 100% of the content even when they can't handle the hurdles to get there. Just go watch some youtube videos if you want it that bad.

It's really too bad they got bought out by Activision... There was a sense of accomplishment before when you killed bosses, not only for loot but for pushing back the baddie of the expac (or die-a lot trying) now well you've seen the fight 3 times by the time you get to an actual 'difficult' encounter.

I'm sad to say though that I've invested so much time in WoW that I will probably end up buying WoD.. I got too many commitments IRL to go and learn a new MMO. At least I managed to kick D3 in the ass

WoW, thats GC tying himself in knots.

Reading it a couple of times I think I actually agree with him on most of it, and I think its fair what he said, but damm, he worded it badly.

I think that a man alone isn't responsible for the game's philosophy.


The company is.

Blizz decided that it should give in to casual demands; gief epics, moar epics, moar mounts etc


When I started playing I was a noob; I leveled up my rogue on sub spec. I was dying all the time, my gear was greys and greens. At lvl 60 with a lot of effort I had a cool full blue gear , from quests and dungeons, and I was "OMG I am great".

I knew that epics required greater effort and time, and I couldn't try it.

On BC I had both the experience and the time required to raid. I respec to combat, I could make my own gear, I had spent a lot of time with my rogue and knew all his secrets.
I didn't ask from Blizz to give me free epics. I put much effort and time for them.



Nowadays casuals ask to have the same privileges as the hardcores, and unfortunately Blizz gives in.


It's all about casuals' demands and Blizzard's fear for mass sub-cancellations.

I think most of it makes sense, I find the more interesting to stuff to be where he touches briefly on the class design choices. I got the feeling that he wasn't real thrilled with the idea of trying to balance both PvE and PvP with the same skill set. I also got a strange feeling that at a certain point they just went too far with trying to spread the utility and basically went to the point of no return where they just had to keep going with it. You can see in his talk about Frost Mages, that the spec just had too much stuff going for it, and frankly I think its not the only spec that falls into that category.

As I said when it was first announced though, we will eventually figure out just why he ( and Pardo as well) left. I think its becoming very apparent that he was just tired of beating his head against the wall when it came to certain aspects of developing the game. I'm directing that more at his bosses and coworkers than I am the players.

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Originally Posted by Drpizka

I think that a man alone isn't responsible for the game's philosophy.


The company is.

Blizz decided that it should give in to casual demands; gief epics, moar epics, moar mounts etc


When I started playing I was a noob; I leveled up my rogue on sub spec. I was dying all the time, my gear was greys and greens. At lvl 60 with a lot of effort I had a cool full blue gear , from quests and dungeons, and I was "OMG I am great".

I knew that epics required greater effort and time, and I couldn't try it.

On BC I had both the experience and the time required to raid. I respec to combat, I could make my own gear, I had spent a lot of time with my rogue and knew all his secrets.
I didn't ask from Blizz to give me free epics. I put much effort and time for them.



Nowadays casuals ask to have the same privileges as the hardcores, and unfortunately Blizz gives in.


It's all about casuals' demands and Blizzard's fear for mass sub-cancellations.

See I think far too often the players point the fingers at other players, when in reality its was a choice made by the company. I've played with some extremely casual people over the years, I've also played with some very hard core. That said, not one time ever have I ever heard anyone say they wanted to be handed epics. Frankly I can't really remember a time when very many players were demanding the ability to have the same gear as the heroic groups. The closest thing I've ever seen to this was that many of us asked for a more accessible version of these raids because we with ran in smaller guilds, or because back then, most of the climax of the story was in the raid itself and very few people ever got to see it.

Frankly I blame Blizzard far more for the current design than anything asked for by players. The everyday player didn't ask that every ounce of meaningful content be routed through raids, Blizzard just chose that route because it was cheaper and easier to do. I was in a casual guild in Vanilla and no one complained about not seeing every single raid boss, but we also had plenty to do and ways to progress that didn't just include AQ40 or Naxx 40.

Originally Posted by Shambulanced

As an older player whose rl friends have mostly left the game for various reasons (mostly rl stuff) i find myself "casual" in that i don have a ton of time to spend in game anymore, my times are erratic, and I'm relying more and more on group finder tools. I get that people like a challenge, but I'm starting to realize the other perspective, the "i don't have 3 hours to wipe on shattered halls for loot.

I am skilled. On any class on the game, in all three roles. But my opinion is the polar opposite of yours. And that's okay, because that's all they are. Opinions.

Gc expressing his opinion is fine, but i do find it disappointing that he is so disdainful of some players who used to contribute to his paycheck.

If you don't have the time for a time sink game then maybe it's time you moved on to something else. Like candy crush.

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Originally Posted by Trassk

I just hate the attitude of douchebags like Greg Street, who thinks elitist hard mode is the only thing that matters and screw anyone else, anyone else who isn't an elitist hardcore player is a 'grandmother'.

Spoken like a true LFR hero.

Originally Posted by Armourboy

See I think far too often the players point the fingers at other players, when in reality its was a choice made by the company. I've played with some extremely casual people over the years, I've also played with some very hard core. That said, not one time ever have I ever heard anyone say they wanted to be handed epics. Frankly I can't really remember a time when very many players were demanding the ability to have the same gear as the heroic groups. The closest thing I've ever seen to this was that many of us asked for a more accessible version of these raids because we with ran in smaller guilds, or because back then, most of the climax of the story was in the raid itself and very few people ever got to see it.

Frankly I blame Blizzard far more for the current design than anything asked for by players. The everyday player didn't ask that every ounce of meaningful content be routed through raids, Blizzard just chose that route because it was cheaper and easier to do. I was in a casual guild in Vanilla and no one complained about not seeing every single raid boss, but we also had plenty to do and ways to progress that didn't just include AQ40 or Naxx 40.

Complaining directly - maybe not

Indirectly though, complaining about attunements , raid size etc you are asking for the company to make it easier for you.

My guild was cooperating with another guild, back in the BC, to kill Maggy and Gruul. We weren't on the forums complaining.

In my opinion, there must be a content designed just for the top in every MMO. If you want to experience it, become a top player, if not just sit back and enjoy the remaining content

At first glance i read Iron Ducks. I was saddened when it was actually Docks.

Originally Posted by Bashiok

Everyone has the tools and capability to do anything. How many do it?

That part annoys me. No not everyone has the capability to do anything. Yes that is something you tell your young child "You can be president one day" but in fact he won't.
Not everybody is good at Math, not everybody is good at art, not everybody can run at olympic levels, no matter how hard they try.
And not everybody can do heroic raids. I was in a family guild with really nice but really bad people. We had people that died every time for example with Imperial Vizier Zor'loks spiral thingy. We tried and tried and told them different tactics and said that they should do nothing at all on the second platform but try to survive the spiral running but they still died every single time.
And it was like that in every encounter. The bad thing was.. they really loved raiding.
So don't tell me everybody can do anything. They couldn't, no matter how often we tried and no matter how easy we made it for them. And that was on normal.
There are a lot of players that are not good at the raid dancing game. Oh dancing makes me remember Heigan. In all Naxx we didn't have a single run where everybody survived. Usually it was me and 2 others that killed him in the end, everyone else was dead. Even after months they still died there.

Originally Posted by Yriel

That part annoys me. No not everyone has the capability to do anything. Yes that is something you tell your young child "You can be president one day" but in fact he won't.
Not everybody is good at Math, not everybody is good at art, not everybody can run at olympic levels, no matter how hard they try.
And not everybody can do heroic raids. I was in a family guild with really nice but really bad people. We had people that died every time for example with Imperial Vizier Zor'loks spiral thingy. We tried and tried and told them different tactics and said that they should do nothing at all on the second platform but try to survive the spiral running but they still died every single time.
And it was like that in every encounter. The bad thing was.. they really loved raiding.
So don't tell me everybody can do anything. They couldn't, no matter how often we tried and no matter how easy we made it for them. And that was on normal.
There are a lot of players that are not good at the raid dancing game. Oh dancing makes me remember Heigan. In all Naxx we didn't have a single run where everybody survived. Usually it was me and 2 others that killed him in the end, everyone else was dead. Even after months they still died there.

Do you agree though that they should be handed out epics and the gratification of having killed an expansion end boss OR rather that they should acknowledge their shortcomings, decide that either they'll only see content they can handle or move to another game without bitching at blizz about difficulty and not seeing content (which is what happened over time and made the game what it is today unfortunately)

The kind of 'bad' you're describing makes me think they're here and contributing at pull then at some point they're just dead meatsacks enjoying the show in 1080p
LFR is already like the special olympics these days and there are still wipes that happen there

Originally Posted by Yriel

That part annoys me. No not everyone has the capability to do anything. Yes that is something you tell your young child "You can be president one day" but in fact he won't.
Not everybody is good at Math, not everybody is good at art, not everybody can run at olympic levels, no matter how hard they try.
And not everybody can do heroic raids.

Holy shit. Did you just compare doing heroic raids to becoming an olympic athlete or the president? I get your point but come on... You don't need exceptional genes to raid in WoW, it's a videogame.

You have to understand that no one was able to kill raid bosses straight from the get go. You also have to understand that raiding isn't (or wasn't... :S) only about killing the boss. Maybe I am a minority but I could wipe hundreds of times on a boss and still have fun as long as there was reasonable progress.
I've also raided with people who were really, and I mean really, bad. But I have still seen them become better. I get that not everyone wants to put in that much time and effort to become better at some videogame but then this game just might not be for you...

I don't see the problem anyway. You say they were bad at it, you wiped a lot but they still loved raiding. So, just let them do their thing then? And if you didn't enjoy playing with them you could have gone and played with other people.

Originally Posted by Drpizka

Complaining directly - maybe not

Indirectly though, complaining about attunements , raid size etc you are asking for the company to make it easier for you.

My guild was cooperating with another guild, back in the BC, to kill Maggy and Gruul. We weren't on the forums complaining.

In my opinion, there must be a content designed just for the top in every MMO. If you want to experience it, become a top player, if not just sit back and enjoy the remaining content

Oh we did the same thing, well actually we ended up getting Gruul down with 20 people on our own but that was later in the expansion. I have, nor do I think most people have a huge issue with there being that content they may not get a chance to see. However the problem is, that the game became so much about raiding, and gearing through raiding that people just didn't have much remaining content to enjoy. Its the one of the reasons that dailies get a bad wrap, they aren't bad, unless thats really all you have to do every day.

This is the reason so many players asked for a 10 man format. They weren't asking to see or experience every single thing that the big guilds were doing, they just wanted something to do group wise as well. I sure as heck don't recall anyone in our guild complaining about the 10 man gear being lower level than the 25 man in Wrath, we were just happy to have something fun to do.

As far as the attunements, those were removed as much because they were hindering new players from moving up even in hardcore guilds. Shoot for us, they were more annoying than hard, and it was actually the larger more progressed guilds that did the complaining about those, simply because it became such a pita to get new recruits.

I think far to often though that Blizzard made design and philosophy changes based on the ideas of gaining new players and more profit and I think in some cases we as a player base allowed them to point the finger at us and blame us for decisions they wanted to make. Certainly players wanted every spec to be viable, and a huge portion of us wanted smaller group content made available, but I certainly don't recall anyone asking for instance for the initial Wrath heroics to be so easy, or Naxx to be as much as a walk in the park as it was ( we were actually disappointed with it as we cleared it in the first night. We were expecting something like Kara which took us a couple months to get down)

Well, back on EU- Silvermoon that I was on BC, top guilds didn't have any problems recruiting

I think that there were groups doing all attunment quests, but I am not sure.. I did my attunment quest chain while in a PUG though!


Anyway, my point is : Play the game at the level you (or your guild) can play. If you want to experience end game --> devote time and progress.

In WOTLK I thought the way Blizzard handled letting everyone look at the endgame cinematic at the fountain in the center of town was very well done. I remember the fountain was plain until the first guild got him down and that was quite a ways into the expac. I logged in one day and went to the fountain and there were statues around it and a plaque I could click and see Arthas taken down by Fordring. That satisfied my curiosity since my guild was stuck on Sindy and never got to the LK until cataclysm when we had more gear. I had gotten to see the lore.

Originally Posted by Drpizka

Well, back on EU- Silvermoon that I was on BC, top guilds didn't have any problems recruiting

I think that there were groups doing all attunment quests, but I am not sure.. I did my attunment quest chain while in a PUG though!


Anyway, my point is : Play the game at the level you (or your guild) can play. If you want to experience end game --> devote time and progress.

We did too if you were referring to the Kara one, but the ones after that required you to down the content first ( TK and SSC) before you could move on. I could definitely remember a ton of complaints on the WoW forums from " top guilds" who were tired of needing to go back and clear those places just to be able to move people into current content as replacements. You saw many of the same complaints back in Vanilla as well in regards to that content.

Originally Posted by Yriel

That part annoys me. No not everyone has the capability to do anything. Yes that is something you tell your young child "You can be president one day" but in fact he won't.
Not everybody is good at Math, not everybody is good at art, not everybody can run at olympic levels, no matter how hard they try.
And not everybody can do heroic raids. I was in a family guild with really nice but really bad people. We had people that died every time for example with Imperial Vizier Zor'loks spiral thingy. We tried and tried and told them different tactics and said that they should do nothing at all on the second platform but try to survive the spiral running but they still died every single time.
And it was like that in every encounter. The bad thing was.. they really loved raiding.
So don't tell me everybody can do anything. They couldn't, no matter how often we tried and no matter how easy we made it for them. And that was on normal.
There are a lot of players that are not good at the raid dancing game. Oh dancing makes me remember Heigan. In all Naxx we didn't have a single run where everybody survived. Usually it was me and 2 others that killed him in the end, everyone else was dead. Even after months they still died there.

So they should make everyone president.

Haha, and now we know why developers, moderators and representatives all have to be excessively PC, or just avoid posting anything all-together. Ghostcrawler makes one mild and amusing comment that may or may not have been at WoW's expense, in a LoL forum, and a bunch of WoW players still manage to jump down his throat for it like he's not human.

The real funny part is the actual dumbing down of the game (and the coinciding loss of subscriptions) didn't start until GC actually joined the team. Sounds like he just had the wrong job all along, based on his comments after leaving. That he's sitting there and making it sound like it wasn't his fault for the past however many years is pretty disingenuous.

Originally Posted by Airbag888

Do you agree though that they should be handed out epics and the gratification of having killed an expansion end boss OR rather that they should acknowledge their shortcomings, decide that either they'll only see content they can handle or move to another game without bitching at blizz about difficulty and not seeing content (which is what happened over time and made the game what it is today unfortunately)

The kind of 'bad' you're describing makes me think they're here and contributing at pull then at some point they're just dead meatsacks enjoying the show in 1080p
LFR is already like the special olympics these days and there are still wipes that happen there

In the end that just happened. We managed to get by through Wrath and Cata normals but the MoP normals were to hard for our raidgroup and we disbanded the raid altogether.
But still it was not a matter of them not trying or anything, we tried and tried and tried, they were just not able to manage the gameplay.

So in a way yes, i think everybody should be president. Easymodes makes it possible for bad players to see the content. Bashioks comment goes in the direction that one hard mode and nothing else is enough since everybody could do it if they really want. And that is not the case in my experience. Some people just can't.

GC's problem is that he often tried to justify changes to the game which were not so wise.

A good example: The changes made to the raiding model in Cataclysm, which GC often tried to justify. Telling players that 10 = 25, when everyone knew that different raid sizes posed different challenges, was insulting to the player base. Not only were we told that 10 = 25, but loot, achievements and lockouts were shared. That was just daft. You could not even fit all of WoW's classes into a 10 man raid, let alone include all player abilities, which limited boss raid design. Blizzard and GC's were so stubborn regarding this change to raiding, which was to the detriment of the raiding scene, and game at large.

Sadly, and I wish I could say different, but I'm pleased that at least one defender of the silly changes to raiding made in Cataclysm is no longer working for Blizzard.