Ghostcrawler - "I’m a big fan of exclusive, prestige rewards for the best players."

[Feril]

As long as those rewards aren't anything collectable or usable in player expression, it's ok. Otherwise it's not ok and it just goes on devaluing the game for everyone on the long run.

[WowIsDead64]

Exclusive rewards - are just waste of devs' resources. This illusion, that they're needed, comes from minority of special snowflakes (around 1% according to stats, Ghostcrawler is one of them, I guess), who think, that somebody cares about their accomplishments. You know... Nobody really cares. This rewards will never be some sort of unreachable carrot on a stick for casual players. Because casual players have simple mentality: inaccessible content - isn't content, inaccessible reward - isn't reward, etc. This things just simply don't exist for them. And also having them as some sort of prestige rewards - is waste of resources too. Everybody plays his own game at his own level - nobody even cares, who you are and how badass you are. For example I don't even look at other players out in the world. All I see: blue title, orange title, etc. At some point back in Cata Blizzard realized, that shifting back from casual content of WotLK to exclusive hardcore content = best recipe of fail.

[Shammyrock]

I think it's fair that the highest difficulties come with their own unique cosmetic rewards.

[Gandrake]

lfr gear in FFXIV

http://imgur.com/eZT4ve6
http://imgur.com/lYi9iTQ

badge gear in ffxiv

http://i.imgur.com/jOqmqQf.png

id post more but i have to go to work

there is no excuse why a company with less is doing more for it's players lol world of rehashcraft is such a shitshow

[G3istly]

He says: "I’m a big fan of exclusive, prestige rewards for the best players. Having something that aspirational has benefits I believe even for players who have little chance of ever earning them."

And then he adds: "That said, I don’t think it’s the right design to have great rewards for the best players and only hopes and dreams for everyone else."

What a contradictory speech.

Because Ghostcrawler is a moron--just like the people who follow him. At no point has any game benefited from timed, exclusive items that are nigh impossible for the average player to acquire. Blizzard has been trying to push that for too long and it has only ever had an adverse effect on the game.

[Deleted]

I'm also respected by many people. But I have nothing to do with modern WoW.

There wouldn't be a discussion if MMOC didn't link his tumblr on the fucking front page. So tiresome. The guy left in 2013. Can we please stop this already?
He has his tumblr and anyone can ask him questions. Sometimes he answers. Can't we just leave it at that? He hasn't worked on modern WoW, he has no clue about the design choices they take.

Why don't we link Mark Kairn's twitter while we're at it. He used to work in the dev team during vanilla? Or some other totally random designer dude who's been at Blizzard at some point?

What's the point of it?

Ghostcrawler isn't just some "totally random designer" though, for many years he was the face of Blizzard: WoW. He was the one who kept communicating with the community, he was the face and voice you saw and heard. People got used to hearing his opinions and thoughts, and even after he left Blizzard they clearly think that they still hold enough value to be heard.

You claim that there wouldn't be a discussion here if MMO-champion didn't post his posts, but do you know how many people might want them to post them here? I doubt Chaud is the only person interested in reading it else it would probably not be here, and threads wouldn't be created about it if they didn't care.

I don't care for anything posted relevant to PvP, does that mean that it should not be posted? No.

There are those who don't care for the darklegacy comics, does that mean that it should not be posted? No.

Different people care for different things, you just happen to not care for this one.

[Soeroah]

No, I disagree. I feel removing such rewards only reduces the interest in content for new or returning players.

Adding new pets and toys and the like to old raids has increased the number of players running those raids, extending the content. Why would I seek for them to do the complete opposite? Look at Legion. All the artifact appearances might be Legion-only unlocks. That means a new or returning transmog-focused player will have nothing to do for weapons in Legion. None of the "achievements" that reward the appearances will be of any appeal to them, and as a result Legion will feel a lot emptier than it currently does for active players going after those appearances.

Plus there's the fact no one should care if another player has a access to a reward they earned two expansions ago. They got to enjoy the prestige while it was prestigous, so they should move on to the next one to prove they are still "superior" instead of carting around the same reward for five years. Yay, you got a rare reward four years ago, how do we know you still play at such a high level?

The only compromise I would accept would be for the "special" rewards to be removed for the expansion following the one in which they were earned, then added back the expansion subsequent to that. That way there's a period where only the people who earned it while it was active have access to it, but in the long run the amount of content won't be permanently reduced, collections can still be filled out and people don't feel like patience is punished while stressful play is encouraged.

[Teri]

How can I take this guy serious?

First they put in Plagued/Black Proto Drake meta achievements.

Then remove them, then keep the meta-achievement mounts in ever since, and even add the plagued proto back to black market....

I would have loved those meta achievement mounts to be removed, even if I didn't have them all, it shows who played back then instead of doing it 4 expansions later (Ulduar/ICC meta achievement mounts are still in the game)

[globenstine]

Could we please stop listening to what he has to say? Why should his opinion be more important than that of any other ex-Blizzard employee? He likes something. Ok. Different people like different things. So sick of seeing his stuff on the frontpage, as if it has any relevance.

people listen to him because when he ran things wow was actually good. or do you prefer rng lottery gearing, rng legendaires and artifact power?

[Soeroah]

I agree with most of what he says. Seems reasonable to me.



I agree with this too. 'Hard work' should always be rewarded.

Where's the cut-off though? Who gets to decide what constitutes "hard work"?

I'm playing 12 characters, rotating as I need to, seeing all the lore in Legion and unlocking as many artifact appearances as I can during the expansion. I've done all 12 class campaigns. I've unlocked 30/36 hidden appearances and I'm intending to unlock all their alt-skins by the end of the expansion. I'm intending to unlock at least the first PvP skin on each class, and I'm working through completing Balance of Power on each class, which is frustrating for me as a player who dislikes manual grouped content.

I feel I play a fair amount more than the raider who might play 4 hours a few nights a week to run a mythic raid and gets cool, special rewards. I feel I'm working harder, longer, Blizzard's getting more value out of my dollar than they would players who play for a few months then take a break until the next raid tier. Yet collectors and alt-focused players are basically the one playstyle who don't have their own row of artifact skins to unlock. Casuals, mid-tier PvE, dedicated PvE, hardcore PvP, high-skilled players and special-item hunters all have their own rows of appearances to unlock, but if you play alts all you get is double, or triple, or however many characters you want to unlock the stuff on the work, no special reward.

Yet there will be many, many players who would argue that what I do is a high quantity of casual content, and thus I shouldn't get special rewards for it, despite the effort this kind of undertaking takes.

[Flurryfang]

In the latest post by Ghostcrawler, he says that he is a big fan exclusive, prestige rewards for the best players.

He also mentions that there should be content for all types of players, however he is in favor of time-limited and rewards that people aspire to, but are never able to obtain.

I think the reason he feels this way is because having aspirations in the game make players better. It also gives players goals to go try to achieve.

Back in TBC, I aspired to be a raider and clear BT and Sunwell because of the fact that it was prestigious. It was cool because I liked that other players saw my gear and wanted to become like me and try to obtain the gear that I had. It felt good because the gear was unique and if a player had T6 gear, it meant they were good players.

Now that gear is so diluted, especially since the same look is obtainable in different difficulties, just with different color variations, it loses some of its umph and prestige. Blizzard is known for being wishy washy on their stance, but one stance that I really wish they would go back to is the WoD model of gear, where the tier gear looked different from the tourist gear.

Do you agree with Ghostcrawler?

I very much agree with GC on this issue. I would really wish, that Blizzard would begin to give mythic and just raiding in general more exclusive stuff. The same comes for very high Mythic+ and Rated PVP. This is needed, because in the current version of WoW, there is next to no incentive to go and challenge yourself other then getting gear, which is a very poor incentive. The days of exclusive content, features or rewards is sadly behind us and people are loosig the will to go into these very challenging aspekts of WoW.

Having more exclusive stuff in the harder parts of the game, would proberly make more people aspire to reach the top.

[Heeresman]

There wouldn't be a discussion if MMOC didn't link his tumblr on the fucking front page. So tiresome. The guy left in 2013. Can we please stop this already

Then of course you have folks like OP who give it that extra exposure by creating a thread, knowing fullwell the impact that will have on the forum.
If that's not trolling for 'reactions and arguments amongst posters (and people know full well that will happen with the GC comments on a game he doesn't and hasn't played in a fair while) then i really don't know.

What's the point of it?

Respoding to this quote out of context perhaps but it gives the trollers a opportunity to increase their post counts and incite flamewars and all sorts of debates which invariably run full steam into arguments and generally negative posts.

Of course the trolls like this one will deny it and say "oh but i'm just asking a qstn and wanted to see peoples' opinions'.

Yea like fukk you do.

[Teri]

Yet there will be many, many players who would argue that what I do is a high quantity of casual content, and thus I shouldn't get special rewards for it, despite the effort this kind of undertaking takes.

I don't understand blizzards policy on what should stay or be removed from the game sometimes.

So they pretty much decide to remove artifact appearances probably next expansion, but gear/mounts can stay and eventually mostly be soloed even as far back as Ulduar.

I know artifact appearances come from many many sources, RNG, raid, solo challenge, pvp, rated pvp, kiljaeden heroic etc so it's different then a single meta-raid achievement so I do compliment you for getting as many as possible :P I just miss consistency in Blizzard on what stays and what doesn't.

They made any raid up to cata soloable, MoP likely gets the damage buff in 8.0 and add pets to cata/MoP raids as well.

Eventually they will change WoD fights to be soloable (mechanics wise)

[Deleted]

Bullshit. People should have content to come back to. If you make everything limited in the game, you will make the situation worse. New players will see many things which they will not get anymore and lose motivation to spend more time in the game, and other players will have less content to do in content droughts and thus unsub more often / buy less game tokens.

This is a game, not an olympic discipline.

And the fucking special snowflakes already have their exclusivity. They get things first, when it's current. Just like in real life, where only selected few people had a car or a TV when these things were new, and later, you could have multiple cars and TVs in a household.

[Flurryfang]

Where's the cut-off though? Who gets to decide what constitutes "hard work"?

I'm playing 12 characters, rotating as I need to, seeing all the lore in Legion and unlocking as many artifact appearances as I can during the expansion. I've done all 12 class campaigns. I've unlocked 30/36 hidden appearances and I'm intending to unlock all their alt-skins by the end of the expansion. I'm intending to unlock at least the first PvP skin on each class, and I'm working through completing Balance of Power on each class, which is frustrating for me as a player who dislikes manual grouped content.

I feel I play a fair amount more than the raider who might play 4 hours a few nights a week to run a mythic raid and gets cool, special rewards. I feel I'm working harder, longer, Blizzard's getting more value out of my dollar than they would players who play for a few months then take a break until the next raid tier. Yet collectors and alt-focused players are basically the one playstyle who don't have their own row of artifact skins to unlock. Casuals, mid-tier PvE, dedicated PvE, hardcore PvP, high-skilled players and special-item hunters all have their own rows of appearances to unlock, but if you play alts all you get is double, or triple, or however many characters you want to unlock the stuff on the work, no special reward.

Yet there will be many, many players who would argue that what I do is a high quantity of casual content, and thus I shouldn't get special rewards for it, despite the effort this kind of undertaking takes.

I think that hard work is not counted in hours played, but content done. I believe, that doing stuff like having 12 lvl 110s should give some form of reward, same with getting a high overall pvp rating with each character. You put it out, that just because you play more hours a day, then you are worthy of more rewards then most mythic raiders, but in the time, that you play, are you really challenging yourself? Are you going over the expected? Not really. You are pretty much just repeating stuff and i don't think that values any big reward.

So yes, because the content you do is casual, it does not value exclusive rewards. What should give exclusive rewards is doing content, that is challenging, requires time investment and also requires you to improve over time. Outside of the milestone of getting all classes to 110, i don't think any of what you have done is either challenging or requires you to improve.

[Deleted]

Where's the cut-off though? Who gets to decide what constitutes "hard work"?

I'm playing 12 characters, rotating as I need to, seeing all the lore in Legion and unlocking as many artifact appearances as I can during the expansion. I've done all 12 class campaigns. I've unlocked 30/36 hidden appearances and I'm intending to unlock all their alt-skins by the end of the expansion. I'm intending to unlock at least the first PvP skin on each class, and I'm working through completing Balance of Power on each class, which is frustrating for me as a player who dislikes manual grouped content.

I feel I play a fair amount more than the raider who might play 4 hours a few nights a week to run a mythic raid and gets cool, special rewards. I feel I'm working harder, longer, Blizzard's getting more value out of my dollar than they would players who play for a few months then take a break until the next raid tier. Yet collectors and alt-focused players are basically the one playstyle who don't have their own row of artifact skins to unlock. Casuals, mid-tier PvE, dedicated PvE, hardcore PvP, high-skilled players and special-item hunters all have their own rows of appearances to unlock, but if you play alts all you get is double, or triple, or however many characters you want to unlock the stuff on the work, no special reward.

Yet there will be many, many players who would argue that what I do is a high quantity of casual content, and thus I shouldn't get special rewards for it, despite the effort this kind of undertaking takes.

Also this. Altoholics almost always lose out, though they invest much more time in the game.

[Crusch]

Totally agree on the time limit and difficulty.

AOTC is a joke with how long you have to obtain them.

The recent artifact appearance challenge should be removed with the release of tomb, it's already easy enough.

[Deleted]

I think that hard work is not counted in hours played, but content done. I believe, that doing stuff like having 12 lvl 110s should give some form of reward, same with getting a high overall pvp rating with each character. You put it out, that just because you play more hours a day, then you are worthy of more rewards then most mythic raiders, but in the time, that you play, are you really challenging yourself? Are you going over the expected? Not really. You are pretty much just repeating stuff and i don't think that values any big reward.

So yes, because the content you do is casual, it does not value exclusive rewards. What should give exclusive rewards is doing content, that is challenging, requires time investment and also requires you to improve over time. Outside of the milestone of getting all classes to 110, i don't think any of what you have done is either challenging or requires you to improve.

So learning to play and gear at least 12 specs to be able to raid at least normal difficulty is not an achievement? Some people are better in being generalists, and they should be punished?

[Flurryfang]

So learning to play and gear at least 12 specs to be able to raid at least normal difficulty is not an achievement? Some people are better in being generalists, and they should be punished?

Getting 12 characters to lvl 110 is an achievement and it should be rewarded. Giving them weak-mediocre gear is not really an achievement. Leveling different character shows determinantion to the game and gives you insight into every class, and just for that, you should get a mount or something. Giving them gear and do raiding with them on the same difficulty is just really needless repetition.

They should not be punished, they should just not be rewarded. Just because you are using alot of time, does not stop you from just being mediocre and therefore should not have exclusive rewards.

[Soeroah]

I don't understand blizzards policy on what should stay or be removed from the game sometimes.

So they pretty much decide to remove artifact appearances probably next expansion, but gear/mounts can stay and eventually mostly be soloed even as far back as Ulduar.

I know artifact appearances come from many many sources, RNG, raid, solo challenge, pvp, rated pvp, kiljaeden heroic etc so it's different then a single meta-raid achievement so I do compliment you for getting as many as possible :P I just miss consistency in Blizzard on what stays and what doesn't.

They made any raid up to cata soloable, MoP likely gets the damage buff in 8.0 and add pets to cata/MoP raids as well.

Eventually they will change WoD fights to be soloable (mechanics wise)

I dislike the removal of anything from the game - I'm still pretty salty I can never do the legendary questlines for MoP and WoD, I liked those stories. I'd even have been alright with the removal of the item rewards, but I think the story should have stayed. Especially WoD, where it was like a third of the expansion's story.

However, I find the artifact appearances particularly egregious. They are basically every weapon appearance in the entire expansion, and if you count the reskins that's about 864 individual appearances across every class that could - COULD - be removed. The last I heard, Blizzard was still deciding on what to do, and I hope they decide to just leave them as something you can collect after the expansion, but anyone would agree that's a ridiculous amount of appearances to suddenly become unavailable just because they wanted to keep them "prestigious". Especially for the ones that literally everyone playing Legion has, like the base appearance, or the easy ones to unlock like "finish your campaign questline".

At the -most- I would accept if they removed the hardcore PvP ones, the Mythic +15 one and the solo challenge ones, but other than that the rest all seem easy to get, just time consuming, in which case I don't consider them valuable, and I wouldn't if they tried to artificially make them moreso by making them unobtainable in the future.

And yes, in any case I agree with you about consistency. For me, and other collectors, this is like WoD's flying debacle, only worse. Rather than knowing what's going to happen, we're now at least a quarter of the way into the expansion and we don't actually know if these things are or aren't going to be earnable in future content, which leads to two main possibilities: either they are being removed, in which case if we're serious about collecting we can't spend much time outside the Broken Isles, we have to constantly work on unlocking appearances while we can before they're forever lost, and this risks burn out; OR they will not be removed after the expansion, in which case anyone doing the work frantically now because they think they're being removed will suddenly find they could have been relaxing and enjoying more the whole time.

Blizzard needs to think about this stuff and come up with a plan before the expansion launches, and stick with it. I would desperately hope their solution is "don't permanently remove stuff that incentivizes replaying old content", but to a degree the unknown makes everything worse, and it only gets worse the longer they take to decide and tell us.

And thanks for the compliment =P A part of me kinda wishes there were appearances for collectors/alt players like me, like a skin for completing all 12 class campaigns, empowering all the artifacts, etc.