Popular Decks of the Week, Dragon Priest has Evolved, November Ranked Season Ending Soon
Unable to Create Games, Rotation for Dec. 1, 2015, Papercraft Johanna, Weekly Sales
Beta Test Weekend Stats, Lorewatch: Genji, Closed Beta vs. Beta Test Weekend Clarified
Legion - Artifact Weapon Previews
Two more previews today, Frost Death Knight and Brewmaster Monk. Be sure to check out the new Monk idle animation in the video!
Patch 6.2.3 Hotfixes - November 30
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Why are game designers so stubborn sometimes? Is it a "kill your darlings" issue? I won't get too specific, but I posted about a poor class design decision in WoW when it was first introduced during MoP beta. I don't play WoW anymore, but to this day the design is universally hated by the community.It's rarely just begin stubborn. In my experience, game designers are very good at "killing their darlings." I say that, because you just can't be very successful at this job unless you can give up on ideas that you desperately love, but just aren't working. Stubborn associate designers churn out of the system quickly.
Practically speaking, what might appear to be stubborness is more likely caused by on or more of the following issues:
1) The designer doesn't like the design either, but hasn't come up with a workable solution yet. This is often the case when the designer's time is better spent on an even bigger problem. Resources, especially time, are not infinite.
2) The design seems unpopular to you, but is actually pretty popular overall. (This can be the most frustrating when the designer doesn't like the idea either!) "Universally hated"(or "univerally loved") really isn't a thing in game design. Our jobs would be easy if that was the case.
3) The designer knows the design isn't working, but knows if she removes the design that it will be nearly impossible to ever put it back in. It's easier to iterate on a design as is than to remove it and hope to restore it in the future.
4) The design is serving a greater purpose you may not realize. Maybe the implementation serves to keep server spam at a minimum or makes it harder to cheat. Ideally the team would eventually find a solution that is more elegant and still meets the technical requirements.
5) The designer wants to get feedback on the idea so he can iterate further. I admit this one is a little weak because it risks making players feel like guinea pigs. On the other hand, you don't want to leave players out of the discussion either.
6) The design isn't awesome, but it's good enough, and the cost of changing it is very high. By "cost" here I am not refering to a monatery amount but the risk of slipping the product. If the feature is core to the game, it may be worth the risk of last minute change or slipping. If it's a minor feature, there is more player value in not holding the game in the naive attempt to achieve absolute perfection.
7) The team already has a new design in testing but isn't ready to talk about it yet. This can be ongoing if the new design requires a lot of iteration before it can go live.
8) And finally, you may be right and the designer may be wrong, and just hasn't realized it yet.
why would a dev keep a mechanic in game that players absolutely hate, is it fun if only the dev thinks its fun? (rune of pow)
As a dev, you often run into systems with potential hat aren't there yet. Yanking them means they likely will never get there (OccupyGStreet)
This Month in WoW – December 2015
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