This was the passionate dev team of the original WoW.

[gushDH]

It was something new back then. You can't make WoW feel new again, that's why people preferred vanilla more, because it was something very new.

[Toppy]

A job that is predicated on Wow being successful with a long term future. Again who the fuck do you people think you are to decide for others how they feel about their own careers solely based on you disliking decisions they have made?

Well the QA's have been rather depressing. The devs doing them are always just so disinterested and and uncaring.

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It was something new back then. You can't make WoW feel new again, that's why people preferred vanilla more, because it was something very new.

Thats a gross over simplification ignoring things like the change from community focus to solo focus or from world building to hero worship.

[xanzul]

Hazzikostas is a lawyer without any exp in developing games.

It is almost like people can change careers or something. Do you people seriously think Blizzard hired a lawyer as a developer despite himnot knowing how to develop? Really? I can't tell if some of you are that fucking stupid or if you are trolling or both.


What you armchair developers need to understand is that up until the past decade or so game design degrees never existed and many current developers went into other fields while younger that did have actual degree programs but that in no way made them any less knowledgable or experienced as developers.

[Toppy]

It is almost like people can change careers or something. Do you people seriously think Blizzard hired a lawyer as a developer despite himnot knowing how to develop? Really? I can't tell if some of you are that fucking stupid or if you are trolling or both.


What you armchair developers need to understand is that up until the past decade or so game design degrees never existed and many current developers went into other fields while younger that did have actual degree programs but that in no way made them any less knowledgable or experienced as developers.

Everyone knows taht Ghostcrawler was just a marine biologist and always has been and never anything else.

[Deleted]

"alive" Sorry but old WoW is long but gone. and the direction it is heading is not good at all. WoW is on it's way out and yes it was for last 6 years. But the train it was going to leave on suddenly moved alot faster since WoD.

It's still breathing. Therefor it is alive. It may have been dead to a great many players long ago, including me, but pointing out its decay hasn't made it die faster.
No one was talking about 'old WoW' btw, not sure where you got that from.

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Brack still works for WoW, he's executive VP.

My mistake then.

Atleast he isn't as invested anymore publicly. All the better.

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Hazzikostas is a lawyer without any exp in developing games.

Except the experience he gained by both playing WoW and being a core dev for many years.

[Eazy]

A job that is predicated on Wow being successful with a long term future. Again who the fuck do you people think you are to decide for others how they feel about their own careers solely based on you disliking decisions they have made?

Exactly.

I'm just saying truth, it's their decision, they can even change the game to be P2W and F2P. But still - my points stands, I think they changed the way they see the game, it's no longer a passion, but a job.

[MoanaLisa]

It's a very different thing to work on a brand new unreleased game versus making the Xth expansion for a game that's been around as a design for 15 years. The fact is you do your best work and if you don't someone else will be doing it instead.

Game designers make games for the times in which they work. It's farcical to think they would make the same game now in 2017. They wouldn't. It was a job then too. I think that it's a mistake to say that today's designers are not passionate about what they do.

[Maudib]

It's a very different thing to work on a brand new unreleased game versus making the Xth expansion for a game that's been around as a design for 15 years. The fact is you do your best work and if you don't someone else will be doing it instead.

Game designers make games for the times in which they work. It's farcical to think they would make the same game now in 2017. They wouldn't. It was a job then too. I think that it's a mistake to say that today's designers are not passionate about what they do.

So you are saying that is the reason WoW has gotten shittier over the years... I see. I guess you won;t hear an argument from me about that. In fact... that is exactly what I was saying in the OP.

[cparle87]

So you are saying that is the reason WoW has gotten shittier over the years... I see. I guess you won;t hear an argument from me about that. In fact... that is exactly what I was saying in the OP.

I think the reason WoW has gotten "shittier" over the years is that people's expectations are too damn high. People expect this game to give them a high, grow back their hair if they're losing it, cure their cancer, and add three inches or two cup sizes, then rage to the heavens when it doesn't.

Instead of raging about how bad it is, why don't you try to not take the game so personally and try to enjoy it?

Also don't forget that classic WoW was the perfect storm. There was the right combination of player base, game, and a zillion other factors came together to make WoW explode into the biggest thing since sliced bread. The odds that that happened were infintesimal, but they happened. The odds of it happening again are even more remote, but people still get mad when it doesn't happen.

[corebit]

I bet the current developers are just as passionate as the team in that picture. Just because you don't like the current direction of the game doesn't mean they don't have passion. It's a 13 year old game and is still the #1 MMO on the market. Name me any other game with this much longevity and popularity.

[Wildmoon]

People always mistakenly think that it was certain people or groups of people who were the reasons for the success for Blizzard's games. It was the company's culture and institutional practices that made their games successes. We have seen so many(by many I mean shits ton) of people claiming the achv of being "ex-blizzard devs" failed terribly.

Jeff Kaplan and his team failed hard with the titan project wasting so much money despite their previous records, while a relatively nobody like Ben Brode led his small team to a huge success off a very limited resource. So yeah, your "vanilla wow devs" don't have magic touch.

[Crimewave]

And I wonder what motivated you to compose such a shitpost (also a lie).

[SirCowdog]

The game was in good hands with Metzen, Kaplan etc.

We ended up with the shitshow of Chilton, Brack and Kosak in WoD. Thank god they left.

Doesn't matter how salty people are, Hazzikostas is the only person keeping this game alive atm. I mean, we have Allen as community manager, Holinka leading the continuous shitshow that is PvP and Afrasiabi in charge of lore. I'm suprised it hasn't collapsed under the weight of its own stupidity yet.

Hazzikostas looks like he has no soul whenever he talks. And he's one of the guys responsible for WoD also, so I don't really see how he gets a free pass on the shitshow.

[Halyon]

Few of them did. Others went to other companies, but those were even less successful.

They unfortunately can't remake awesomeness of old WoW. Every attempt so far failed

Huge thanks to them for making this awesome game.

When something brand new and exciting happens, it has the 'new baby smell'. That can't ever be repeated, it's impossible. It evolves into nostalgia, and it mars every new attempt.

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I think the reason WoW has gotten "shittier" over the years is that people's expectations are too damn high. People expect this game to give them a high, grow back their hair if they're losing it, cure their cancer, and add three inches or two cup sizes, then rage to the heavens when it doesn't.

Instead of raging about how bad it is, why don't you try to not take the game so personally and try to enjoy it?

Also don't forget that classic WoW was the perfect storm. There was the right combination of player base, game, and a zillion other factors came together to make WoW explode into the biggest thing since sliced bread. The odds that that happened were infintesimal, but they happened. The odds of it happening again are even more remote, but people still get mad when it doesn't happen.

Also this. This will serve as an upvote.

[Polarthief]

I bet the current developers are just as passionate as the team in that picture. Just because you don't like the current direction of the game doesn't mean they don't have passion.

And yet...

Hazzikostas looks like he has no soul whenever he talks. And he's one of the guys responsible for WoD also, so I don't really see how he gets a free pass on the shitshow.

^ is why I feel like, at least Hazzikostas just sees this as a job/paycheck, not really a passion or "vision" as he calls it (especially when he doesn't even play his own 'vision'). He talks to his consumers like they're investors more than actual gamers. That may not upset everyone, but it does a great deal of us. Also don't get me started on Mr. Class Fantasy who plays on a tablet with no input devices.

Also the failed promises don't help. Remember the whole "better communication" thing? If anything, communication has gotten even worse, not better.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Pretty sure the people working on the game are plenty passionate. Jaded players whom can't seem to move on projecting their own shit onto the developers, how original... This old "the devs don't care about us boo hoo"-trope has been around for as long as I've been playing. Yes, even during the now hailed WOTLK.

If Classic WoW launched today, it'd be dead in the fucking water. Just look at how lame the very first trailer for WOW is compared to trailers of today.

The "awesomeness" is entirely down to personal feels. This holds true for every iteration of the game.

[Wildmoon]

And yet...



^ is why I feel like, at least Hazzikostas just sees this as a job/paycheck, not really a passion or "vision" as he calls it (especially when he doesn't even play his own 'vision'). He talks to his consumers like they're investors more than actual gamers. That may not upset everyone, but it does a great deal of us.

Also the failed promises don't help. Remember the whole "better communication" thing? If anything, communication has gotten even worse, not better.

Ion is the more honest and upfront out there. Just because he is rather frank does not mean he is not passionate. You don't raid at high level if you are not passionate about it.

[Polarthief]

Pretty sure the people working on the game are plenty passionate. This old "the devs don't care about us boo hoo"-trope has been around for as long as I've been playing. Yes, even during the now hailed WOTLK.

Of course it's always going to be around, because you can't make 12M players happy, but yet with significantly less players, why is the general negativity going up instead of down? You'd think most of the negative players would have quit by now, no?

Ion is the more honest and upfront out there. Just because he is rather frank does not mean he is not passionate. You don't raid at high level if you are not passionate about it.

"Being frank" is one thing. Speaking how he does is another.

Compare him to Ben Brode, who is an example of the extreme opposite of him. Watch how they both talk and discuss things about their games. Sure they're different games, but they still both work on/for Blizzard (games).

Idk, I just feel like if you aren't a good (charismatic) speaker, perhaps you shouldn't be speaking. It's why you don't see me doing that line of work

[Bullettime]

So you are saying that is the reason WoW has gotten shittier over the years... I see. I guess you won;t hear an argument from me about that. In fact... that is exactly what I was saying in the OP.

WoW being shittier is entirely subjective. If WoW were to be launched today the way it was in vanilla, it would have been a fucking disaster.

People may dislike the direction WoW has headed in but at the same time, WoW has simply followed the trends in the gaming market. Hell, that's Blizzard's entire schtick. See what other companies are doing right and try to do it themselves but improve it. And it's made them massively successful across a plethora of titles.

Fact of the matter is that the MMORPG market is not what it used to be and trends change. Games that try to rekindle that age old nostalgia end up falling flat on their faces when they realize that what worked 15 years ago no longer applies to today's gaming market. Games like WoW and FFXIV have managed to carve out a niche and keep to it instead of living in the past, which is why they're doing so well relative to every other game.

Does Legion have problems? Absolutely. But if you're looking for that old MMO experience, well good luck finding it outside of a game that caters to maybe 200k people tops.

[Wildmoon]

Of course it's always going to be around, because you can't make 12M players happy, but yet with significantly less players, why is the general negativity going up instead of down? You'd think most of the negative players would have quit by now, no?

It's not going up. The negativity has been high on the forum since forever. The declining playerbase is just distorting perceptions of people even more. They feel validated.