Ghostcrawler on unsubbing

[TheDeeGee]

Why is he always in the news...

It's 2017 by now, he left 15 years ago...

[Torgent]

Why is he always in the news...

It's 2017 by now, he left 15 years ago...

Or...3.5 years. He still speaks publicly and is well respected in his field, hence why he's still in the news.

[Pann]

So 1 friend quits because he doesn't like a change, his best friend quits because he quit and doesn't want to play solo, their other friend quits because he only knew those two people in the game.

That's 1 vote for bad change and 2 for "friends don't play".

In this scenario the root cause of three people leaving is the bad change.

[Torgent]

In this scenario the root cause of three people leaving is the bad change.

No. That's an indirect relationship. The bad change is only directly responsible for one loss. The others stated their reason is the friend.

[Pann]

No. That's an indirect relationship. The bad change is only directly responsible for one loss. The others stated their reason is the friend.

No, it is not. The business made a change that was not liked and as a result lost three customers, they can argue that two were not fussed by the change but by doing so the business fails to address the issue and risks losing further customers.

[Torgent]

No, it is not. The business made a change that was not liked and as a result lost three customers, they can argue that two were not fussed by the change but by doing so the business fails to address the issue and risks losing further customers.

...You don't understand what you're saying. This is literally the definition of an indirect relationship rather than a direct cause.

[Rawklobster]

How does he know the reason why people are quitting?

If you're going to use that logic how does anyone really know why people are quitting???
I would tend to think a developer has acccess to more valid information about people's playing habits than joe blow internet warrior who's strong feelings about an argument make his points valid

[Pann]

...You don't understand what you're saying. This is literally the definition of an indirect relationship rather than a direct cause.

You're arguing semantics and excusing the poor decisions by the business. The fact of the matter is the business has lost the income from three customers as a result of a change they made. They can try to hand wave the issue away and point to two leaving because of their friend or they can deal with the underlying problem.

[Baine]

TL;DR GC advocates Blizzard via saying:
1) Players don't quit due to game design reasons
2) Constant game design changes are better, than keeping the same design

I wouldn't trust him, cuz he was the reason of Cata/MOP fails.

MoP didn't failed. It was the best WoW expansion at that point.

[Deleted]

'Don't stop giving us money, make forum posts instead.'

Sounds legit, will do. But let me buy some prime swampland in Florida first.

[Granyala]

My perception has been that the players and developers in the “We’ve changed too much!” camp tend to be those who are less engaged with the game than they once were. Losing track of change usually happens to players who once played every day and are now playing once a week or once a month. They remember being super engaged with the game and knowing everything that was going on, and so the dissonance of that no longer being the case for them is really striking, perhaps even alienating.

Absolutely.
I am in that camp, was a heroic/mythic raider and super engaged, am now a barely active casual and the rate of change can be quite confusing and at times annoying, if classes change too much. Shadow priest for example no longer feels like the class I wanted to play for 10 years.

I can totally see how the constant re-learning every expansion can drive people away.
Then again, other people can be driven away if too little changes.

It must be a pretty tough call to make.

[Forogil]

That's not a valid statistical analysis.

It is a valid quality analysis, since the '5 whys' is one of the common techniques for improving quality - instead of spending time on superficial problems.

Reporting why the friends don't play isn't an honest analysis because that reason should only be attributed to ONE vote...the friend who quit due to a change. Other people that quit because their friend quits aren't quitting because of a change. They are quitting because their friend quit. I hope you can understand the difference.

I understand the difference in reporting - and I also understand that if a company wants to keep subscribers the difference doesn't really matter.

[Pua]

Funny how you call me out for not adding my own thoughts and make it insulting, when I was pointing out that the OP didn't add his own thoughts either, but didn't insult him for it. And you've yet to add your own thoughts.... Should I insult you now? Because that seems to be how this thing works these days. OP copy/pasting and people insulting each other about the lack of content.

Sure, you can insult me. I honestly don't mind. But a bit of self-reflection might have told you that if you were going to start your intercession here by saying that there was nothing worth discussing, in a post chock-full of talking points, then you'd end up looking a bit daft.

[Dhrizzle]

So during WoD 7 million players just didn't have time to play anymore for family reasons. What a coincidence!

Yeah, right.

Considering at least 5 million of them had already "quit" during other expansions and returned to try WoD, and the other ~2 million going was roughly the same as Cata and MoP I don't see it as much of a stretch.

[Puupi]

Considering at least 5 million of them had already "quit" during other expansions and returned to try WoD, and the other ~2 million going was roughly the same as Cata and MoP I don't see it as much of a stretch.

And they quit for family reasons again​?

[SL1200]

Typical developer arrogance. People unsub because they have jobs and and cant spend time on the game anymore or because their friends left the game. Their friends must of left because they got a job or something. You know the game is 10 years old. That's why they left, not because of something we did.

Something about becoming a game developer on wow makes these people delusional. Must be a cultural thing.

[Epicon]

Your post is not exactly showing anything that does it better. Except saying there are points in the article. And that you read my 26 000 posts. Scary....



Is this suddenly a public service from people like OP. Well how nice from him to make this his newspaper corner. I bet he walks through his office also just blaring out news headlines and reading from articles without engaging in conversations.

So yeah, I will keep giving my opinion on such a trend and we now can shake hands on more replies that are off the topic.

You guys could have just ignored me, but you jump on me the same way I jumped on the OP, for different reasons, but they are just as sad

You have posted a lot, so that makes you right over anyone else, pretty sure that is your mindset. I guess it means you also get to troll and insult people. Someone gives information about the former director of World of Warcraft who has insight we simply do not have and you complain. How is you complaining about information any better than someone who gave information.

You say people jumped on you for different reasons, but you did the same thing right off the bat that caused their behavior. Who are you buddies with that allows you to troll and be a dick to anyone who has a different opinion?

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My "assertion" is based on what GC said, as I already mentioned. If you want to refute it, you must prove that you know more about being a Blizzard dev than GC.

You must prove more than being the former game director of Blizzard. People hated Ghost Crawler but he always listened to the community and when he developed Death Knights as a class, he got a lot of feedback from players. They felt a sense of ownership of the class because they were really listened too. Now days Blizzard claims they are listening to players more than ever. They doubled their efforts and are doing much more.

Yet with Ghost Crawler they were already listening to players and communicated with them. They didn't always agree with players and vice versa. But Ghost Crawler really embraced the community in a way the later directors didn't. I like Watcher but he comes off like an employee at H&R Block talking about taxes. Remember Blizzard said this around October,

"Our design focus now is to make the game we want to play, and only then will we let players into the world to experience our game. We listen to players but we don't always agree in the end we make the type of game we at Blizzard would want to play." Ornyx (or whatever the hell his name is, I call him community manager Negan).

Point is Ghost Crawler cared more about community feedback. People can whine about Cata all they want (sorry I like the cata heroic dungeons before the nerf), but it was better than WoD and some would argue better than Legion.

[xanzul]

Yes? So what? what is your own opinion? Not really much ground for debate here...

Really? I can think of at least 10 different ways this statement will cause incessant whining and bitching by Wow haters who cant deal with the idea of their hate being more or less completely totally irrelevent.

If GC had posted this while at Blizzard these forums would have had a complete and total meltdown.

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Cataclysm heroic dungeons
Battle.net real name display
no-flight
etc.

...made them revert changes pretty fast.

Er...except no. realid was an immediate change in stance. Flight not so much. Actually not at all. Blizzard devs have been quite candid about the divide among themselves on flight which mirrored that of players and it was several years of back and forth between all these various camps before the final decision on flight was decided.


Cata dungeons? It was months before any of that was changed. I really have to wonder what world you people on these forums live on because it certainly isn't mine.

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That would explain why many people quit in WoD. Because there were many things to do and they did not have time to play the game, oh wait....

Every single fucking complaint about Legion has involved that very issue. In fact some aspects of Wod did as well but I can see why people are threatened by their not so clever bullshit being shot down.

[Epicon]

So much truth. People on MMO Champion think they're the majority, think they're game designers, think their opinion matters, think their shitposting accomplishes stuff... when in reality, it does nothing. No one cares. WoW has been dead for years, but the servers are still up and ATVI stock is the highest its ever been.

I really agree with your post based on my lurking for years. if they post a lot and defend what they enjoy in the face of others with a different opinion. Surely if they do that? They must be someone of great importance in real life with vast riches and a successful game studio - that seems to be their mindset.

It's not crazy to love games, play them or even talk about them. It's crazy to act crazy about games, over a hobby. Sometimes I think political forums and Facebook pages - that the trolls and toxic people who live on those are mere rookies in the face of their MMO trollish/toxic cousins.

[xanzul]

It's everyone else's newscorner so why not and it's certainly no setback. Get off your high horse it was you who started the bickering that can't be ignored, but hey how could you be on that horse without posting trash huh

"Bickering that can't be ignored"


Thank you for describing the level of shitposting that these forums have reached.

Obviously that wasn't your intent which makes it all the more entertaining.

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Blizzard isnt posting their numbers anymore and now we know players dont even leave because of design decisions much. How are we going to have ""discussions" about game design now ?

I dont know...maybe by discussing the actual god damn game involved?


And I understand your point in saying that just so you are aware.

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Ghost Crawler makes some salient points. The truth is that the only effective way for most players to influence game developers is by posting constructive and detailed critique on a relevant forum.

If only people knew what that actually meant.

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How does he know the reason why people are quitting?

Is this a serious question? He was a developer for Wow and is now at Riot developing for LoL. If anyone has actual facts and figures to back up his claims it is him.

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Det is born to do this. Its absurd how many content-less posts this person has given over the years. It nearly looks like there is an achievement when you reach xxx posts, and Det try to get it, by posting 1 line superficial posts on a daily base. Glad to see someone else recognized that, bc it slowly become an eye cancer to me.

oh, and dont forget: Det is born to complain about complains too!

Most of the threads det responds to are lacking content. What the people who make these threads put into it is what they get back.

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People quit the game because it's no longer fun, time has nothing to do with it, if you can only play 2-4 hours a week and you have fun doing it why not continue playing? Changes made to the game made me quit, i still have plenty of time, but the game is not has engaging or rewarding has it once was.

Do you really not understand how lack of time can make an activity that used to be fun now less fun? Really? It really takes balls to make a statement like this when all the incessant whining about Legion has been about exactly just that: time.

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yep. i think ghostcrawler (on purpose) derailed that to a "1 change i disliked that much, so i quitted" thing. he not speaks about the game changing slowly into something else and ppl leave because after a while its no longer theirs. he circumnavigate around that part wisely.

and, agreed to the quoted post, i strongly believe there are a lot of players have plenty of time and fill their time now with other games, not because they were upset about 1 or 2 design changes, but because the game driven away from what that player called a fun game. imo millions of ppl every day stopped playing wow, because they finally reached the "its just no longer mine" point.

imo a mmorpg is not the right place for a lot of innovation. thats just not at what mmorpg games are based on. of course we need innovation in such games. but slowly, in special corners. i dont believe that it is healthy for a mmorpg game to massively innovate the core of the game and the overall design of the game. thats not what naturally conforms to a mmorpg game.

look at subnumbers of wow. forget about the "how" they changed the game (more catering to the masses etc.). just look at WHEN there was slowly a lot of SOME change (regardless what). thn you will see, they changed not that much while vanilla till end of TBC. TBC brought flying, 25 not 40 raids and some class mechanics as innovations. that was it. first half of Wotlk exactly the same. Most of the things added were just "content". Not that much innovations. At mid-end Wotlk they started with a lot of innovations, often called QoL changes. They added LFG, LFR, Pet Battles, Shop, changed overall game design, implemented Quest Helper, changed raid systems, and so on. Exactly the point when they started to "innovate" the game overall, was the point the subs just going down down down. Before it was up up up.

Now you say: "Of course at some point it must go always down because the game is gettin old."

And you are right. BUT: I miss the point in the game were (as in nearly all that things) the game has his high and was STABLE at this high for 1-2-3 years. where are the 2-3 years on the top of the graph when the game reached his maximum (lets say 12mio ppl), is stable, and drop when gettin old ? this part not exists in wow. instead, at the highest point they innovate the game and it started dropping immediately.

And thats what i say. Thats my evidence of "overall innovation is not healthy in a mmorpg". wow never had his "long term top of the zenith" phase, because the innovations take it away. and this clearly shows (just look at the sub numbers graph) that innovations and mmorpg games do not match naturally.

by default, mmorpgs are games with long term investment, mostly dedicated to a specific playerbase. if this is your playground, its naturally that a lot of changes and innovations do not match that game pattern.

or in short: a lot of innovations in short circles is better placed in a game with a short term design base, fluctuating audience, targeted to the masses, young kids, etc. the mmorpg genre naturally goes into the other direction, is asking for long term commitment, time investment, a solid long term playing customer base and so on. its the wrong place, naturally, for staedy innovations.

It is amazing how many of the usual shitposters here are so offended by what GC said. It is quite telling.