Ghostcrawler leaving WoW

[Gambit5555]

Considering how long I've been around, and who I know in the gaming industry....it's his imagination talking. There currently IS no "word on the street" about this, except for a lot of people from a lot of different companies wishing him well in the future.

Exactly. Ghostcrawler from my experience seems to be quite popular in the industry, and will most likely end up with another designer if he desires. Anyone screaming "omg Subs dropped, GC is fail" doesn't understand that a) Lead designer or not, he's not responsible for the game. And B) Wow was never going to stay at 12 million. It just wasn't gonna happen. The economy is trash, few people have disposable income, and those that do seldom want to spend it on a video game.Not GC's fault

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i see ppl either happy or sad about this news , to make up my own mind i would need to ask just what is GC responsible for, i am not talking class balance, but game content or design just what can be contributed to hiim, what was his goal in wow...maybe once i see just what he did contribute i can make up my own mind...can anyone point to one or more things specifically and say " this...is here or not here because of GC " ?

I can't directly point to GC and say the increased communication is strictly his decision, but I can say that he was at the forefront of increased developer/ player communication. Before him, your guess would be as good as mine for what the developers were going for

[Prefile]

Well, shit

[kmon]

well...if GC's sole purpose was to increase dev/player communication than nothing will change, but really is that all he did contribute to the game, just increased conversations between blizz and us ?

[Evilfish]

So a guy is leaving Blizz, so what? Quit acting like someone died.

[Gambit5555]

well...if GC's sole purpose was to increase dev/player communication than nothing will change, but really is that all he did contribute to the game, just increased conversations between blizz and us ?

No, he was a lead game developer, he worked to make sure that classes were viable, could work in raids, and also worked with the game design team. From the descriptions I've read, the team is pretty fluid in everybody working on everything.

[kmon]

you know...if for WoD each class gets their own " class quest " of vanilla epic proportions than you know this was a good change...yes i know they said no plans currently but if they do than i have high hopes for wow....of course class quests just being one of many things i would change to make the game better....but i mean epic though ...like 1 in 10,000 drop rate epic hehehe, you know that the only way to make this game last is to make it harder, they had enough making it easier and look where we are...and i am not talking raiding

[tratra]

who is that guy ghostcrawler?

[bufferunderrun]

Exactly. Ghostcrawler from my experience seems to be quite popular in the industry, and will most likely end up with another designer if he desires. Anyone screaming "omg Subs dropped, GC is fail" doesn't understand that a) Lead designer or not, he's not responsible for the game. And B) Wow was never going to stay at 12 million. It just wasn't gonna happen. The economy is trash, few people have disposable income, and those that do seldom want to spend it on a video game.Not GC's fault

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I can't directly point to GC and say the increased communication is strictly his decision, but I can say that he was at the forefront of increased developer/ player communication. Before him, your guess would be as good as mine for what the developers were going for

I think that gc is just the first, soon if Wod don't revert the trend other heads gonna roll out from blizzard door, i really think that the upper management is under pressure from the shareholders and wanna see some result if wow keep losing sub many gonna lose their job, personally i think the next in line is chilton but who know.
WoW maybe old but losing 4.5m sub in 2 xpack is too much no one keep it's job with those result; that said i pity all the player who think that the game is gonna be back to vanilla if anything those who blizzard is trying to put back in wow dev team are the one that designed wotlk.

[Bullettime]

Hopefully with his departure the game can receive some much needed class uniqueness; rather than its linear homogeneity in it's current state. wtb moar class quests, armour/weapon sets, buffs etc etc...

The downside is that before Ghostcrawler getting more say, the game was an imbalanced mess. Part of the homogenization of classes was due to the 10m raid size being made a competitive option where you had to be able to bring whatever was available so more was available to each individual class.

The old WoW team, the heads of the department before Ghostcrawler was added to the team, were known to not communicate with players at all except to tell hybrids to fuck off and heal or give pures the finger if they wanted more than one playable DPS spec. They were heavily anti convenience and felt like they were trying to make an Everquest clone.

People look back on the days of vanilla and BC and praise them but then completely ignore specs like Shadow being trash in vanilla and a mana battery in BC, Balance being near unplayable until 3.0, pures running around with only one viable spec and two dumpster specs, etc. Ghostcrawler was the main proponent of class balance and gameplay conveniences and while the second part may have gone a bit too far, he did a lot of good for the game. Homogenization was a side effect of the demand for 10m to be a competitive gameplay setting. With 20m mythic being the only "heroic" endgame progression size, they can strip down the classes a bit and add a bit more uniqueness. They've used the example of Paladins not needing an interrupt which brings the control aspect back to Rogues.=, Warriors can go back to being the masters of cleaving, Hunters not needing full buff coverage, etc.

[Pyromelter]

I am literally sickened, appalled and downright disgusted at the sheer arrogance, ignorance, pettiness and blindness of the majority of posts here and on the official forums. I am shocked that the WoW playerbase could contain such outright naive people who honestly think that ONE guy made every single decision in regards to gameplay.

....

GC wasn't the head honcho or CEO (-Really-? CEO? You -actually- suggested he was akin to the CEO of Blizzard?). God there is so much more stuff I want to say but I don't fancy getting banned.

I'm often more shocked than you, especially at a complete lack of reading comprehension.

Mike Morhaime is the CEO.
Chris Metzen is the guy who writes the story.
Other people are responsible for levels, quests, dungeons.
Still others are responsible for the artwork and animations.
Ghostcrawler is the guy that is responsible for the gameplay. So yes, every single bit of code that relates to every talent, spell, profession, mounts, etc, was all under his supervision. He may not have invented those spells, or originally implemented them in vanilla, but each of those spells comes under his ultimate supervision. The fact that he might have to write a report to Morhaime doesn't absolve him from what is ultimately his responsibility, because WoW was his only focus, whereas Morhaime is running an entire company.

In no way, shape, or form, did I say that he was CEO.

Reading comprehension: You're doing it wrong.

[Bullettime]

I'm often more shocked than you, especially at a complete lack of reading comprehension.

Mike Morhaime is the CEO.
Chris Metzen is the guy who writes the story.
Other people are responsible for levels, quests, dungeons.
Still others are responsible for the artwork and animations.
Ghostcrawler is the guy that is responsible for the gameplay. So yes, every single bit of code that relates to every talent, spell, profession, mounts, etc, was all under his supervision. He may not have invented those spells, or originally implemented them in vanilla, but each of those spells comes under his ultimate supervision. The fact that he might have to write a report to Morhaime doesn't absolve him from what is ultimately his responsibility, because WoW was his only focus, whereas Morhaime is running an entire company.

In no way, shape, or form, did I say that he was CEO.

Reading comprehension: You're doing it wrong.

Ghostcrawler still answered to Tom Chilton and Rob Pardo. Ghostcrawler was lead systems designer, not game designer. The guy with the final say to WoW changes was Chilton as Chilton is the lead game designer and essentially the prime manager of the WoW team. Ghostcrawler was simply the guy who was willing to face the community for decisions made even outside of his immediate area. Hollinka is the lead PvP designer and Ghostcrawler still took community flak for his decisions because he was the guy leading the player-developer communications.

[Deleted]

Will this be another Chance for Jay Wilson to rise once again . Its a shame because GhostCrawler is such an interesting Guy

[Weischbier]

Well, we should have known, shouldn't we?

[Thes]

Because Kalgan and Tigole had so awesome game balance back in the day, we might see that again!

Oh waaaaaaait.

[Deleted]

There is more unproven, spoken as if factual, speculation in this thread then on a 9/11 Truther site.

Enjoyed just watching his communication with the playerbase. What other game offers such insight into ideas and why certain things were implemented/changed.

Will miss his twitter feed, was an entertaining follow.

[solvexx]

I for one enjoyed what GC did for WoW.

[Peso]

Because Kalgan and Tigole had so awesome game balance back in the day, we might see that again!

Oh waaaaaaait.

Even today the games not balanced. Balance isn't the only thing that made the game great at the time. It had to be experienced first hand to be understood. Tigole is a genius and that's why they moved him to Titan to make another masterpiece game succeed.

[Nightslayer7]

Mark your calendars, folks! Within 3 months of Warlords of Draenor being released, people will be sighing nostalgically as they remember the "good ol' days of Ghostcrawler".

^^^^^ This

[corebit]

Even today the games not balanced. Balance isn't the only thing that made the game great at the time. It had to be experienced first hand to be understood. Tigole is a genius and that's why they moved him to Titan to make another masterpiece game succeed.

And that wasn't part of GC's job so what's your point? GC was in charge of mostly balance and not the entire direction of the game, that's the responsibility of the game DIRECTOR.

So many things are blamed on Ghostcrawler that he isn't even part of, it just shows some people like to foam at the mouth like rabid dogs.

[Kraenen]

did he take the fax machine with him as he left?