Aren't you making the game for your players?

[averykey]

https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...87338077835264

.@CybranSpiderbot you don't get good games by just giving people what they ask for. Game design isn't just polling.

You don't get good games by giving people what they want in the game they play?

Anyone have opinions on this?

edit:

It's obvious Game design isn't just polling, a game designer needs to take ideas from the community and make them better and fit with the rest of the game, but a game designer also needs to make changes that make sense and make the game more enjoyable.

I really don't understand why this guy is a game designer, he seems big headed.

[Deleted]

well what he means is , players ( and yes it happends) ask him in twitter this : NERF LAVA BURST

or

NERF KILL COMMAND

or

NERF SHAMANS THEY ARE OP

and stuff like that all along the line and stupid ideas like , bring back vanilla we want it etc etc etc you get my point!

so yes i understand why he says that , he means that and not something constructive

[Deleted]

The players don't know what they want.

[Banzubie]

You kinda already answered this with your own post.

Hes saying you dont get a good game by JUST giving stuff to players when they ask for it. If we had that the game would be filled with over the top classes that would be super over powered. There is a thought process that goes into this. Do they take ideas from the community? Yes, they do. But it does not mean that all ideas from the community are good.

[Deleted]

We all have different ideas haven’t you noticed ?

Also it’s the game designers game not yours they just want to share it with you.

Blizz change things all the time reacting to their customers without admitting they are being led in any direction.

[Deleted]

He's right. You do not get a good game by just giving people what they ask for, because what one person wants - another doesn't. Yes, they are making their game for the playerbase, but that playerbase does not all want the same thing, and pleasing everyone is an impossible goal.

It's also not just about that - players don't understand the technical limits, they may not understand the resources required, what things may be affected when one thing is changed, what knock on effects there will be. Also developers and designers have to create a game that they are proud to put their name on, a game that they hope will be critically acclaimed from a design and art point of view as well as that of their players. There has to be a lot of due consideration.

He never said that he didn't want the game to be enjoyed by the people who play it... I personally read his statement as saying that player demands can't be the sole consideration.

It may be something he shouldn't have tried to say in a tweet because it's a far more complex issue than a one liner for twitter.

[bionics]

Usually when the designer says something along the lines of, "Well, we can't just pander to the whims of every player that whines" they have a very good grasp of the game's classes, concepts, and overall atmosphere. I think this is good. The developers know what sort of game they set out to make. Do you think Shigeru Miyamoto cried himself to sleep at night when people told him some of his ideas were silly in notion?

However, it's ironic that Ghostcrawler doesn't have a very good grasp on WoW. Or at least, he's made a lot of boneheaded statements to suggest that his knowledge isn't as good as it should be, especially given the power of his position.

[sandmoth12]

The players don't know what they want.

^This. I also believe the players do not truly know what they want. Most are very i'll informed on issues and do not take to time to research and understand them. Very much the same as politics.

[Darsithis]

No, he's correct. You don't make the game the "gamers want", since they rarely know what they truly want that works well in the long run. Leave it up to the community and the game would be destroyed insanely fast.

We like to think that we know better, that we have access to more info, but face it: Blizzard has the real data and we have anecdotal evidence of "what is the right thing for the game". That doesn't mean they never listen or add some other neat item to the game, but there are a pile of ideas that even I can see would be terrible overall:

- Level scaling of all zones
- Level scaling of older raids (thus making newer content completely pointless)
- Nerf this! Nerf that! All because I can't kill that one class in PvP!
- Return to old pointless talent trees that forced everyone to take incremental but required talents that did nothing to enhance gameplay
- Attunements that required (while cool for lore buffs) everyone and their alts and new players and new members in a guild to slog through ridiculous requirements to raid no matter how good of a player they were.

[judgementofantonidas]

agree with ghostcrawler not so much with you.

[sandmoth12]

No, he's correct. You don't make the game the "gamers want", since they rarely know what they truly want that works well in the long run. Leave it up to the community and the game would be destroyed insanely fast.

We like to think that we know better, that we have access to more info, but face it: Blizzard has the real data and we have anecdotal evidence of "what is the right thing for the game". That doesn't mean they never listen or add some other neat item to the game, but there are a pile of ideas that even I can see would be terrible overall:

- Level scaling of all zones
- Level scaling of older raids (thus making newer content completely pointless)
- Nerf this! Nerf that! All because I can't kill that one class in PvP!
- Return to old pointless talent trees that forced everyone to take incremental but required talents that did nothing to enhance gameplay
- Attunements that required (while cool for lore buffs) everyone and their alts and new players and new members in a guild to slog through ridiculous requirements to raid no matter how good of a player they were.

I honestly don't see why those 3 are so bad. They also have very good points about them to.

---------- Post added 2012-12-11 at 08:48 AM ----------

agree with ghostcrawler not so much with you.

Yeah I agree also. However, just because I agree with him now does not mean I will disagree later.

[Erolian]

They are correct that you should not listen to the player base about everything. Thing is we also have the right to complain and tell them that they're idiots when they're actually idiots. Example would be the recent fire mage buff/nerf/buff. Anyone with a clue would have shot down the buff 5.1 brought before it made it into the game after the 3 second pyro was removed. We're talking a HUGE spike in damage that required zero thought to grasp what was about to happen assuming they actually knew how to play the class. Most likely it was caused by quite the large lack of communication or straight up negligence. We can not however tell them to change the lore or buff/nerf upon personal experiences with zero regard to the game as a whole or player skill.

[sandmoth12]

He's right. You do not get a good game by just giving people what they ask for, because what one person wants - another doesn't. Yes, they are making their game for the playerbase, but that playerbase does not all want the same thing, and pleasing everyone is an impossible goal.

It's also not just about that - players don't understand the technical limits, they may not understand the resources required, what things may be affected when one thing is changed, what knock on effects there will be. Also developers and designers have to create a game that they are proud to put their name on, a game that they hope will be critically acclaimed from a design and art point of view as well as that of their players. There has to be a lot of due consideration.

He never said that he didn't want the game to be enjoyed by the people who play it... I personally read his statement as saying that player demands can't be the sole consideration.

It may be something he shouldn't have tried to say in a tweet because it's a far more complex issue than a one liner for twitter.

Isn't it strange that the simplistic things are usually very complicated when looked at deeper? Conversely, isn't it also just as strange that complex things can be distilled down to simplistic things?

[averykey]

I honestly don't see why those 3 are so bad. They also have very good points about them to.

---------- Post added 2012-12-11 at 08:48 AM ----------



Yeah I agree also. However, just because I agree with him now does not mean I will disagree later.

I can see old raids being scaled up after a new expansion, but to do it for current content seems like a bad idea. Some trinkets from old raids would be miles ahead of new trinkets in current raids.

Atonement for heroic raids, not for normals/lfr. Only way I can see it working. It really doesn't add much gameplay though.

[Nero Duskwind]

https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...87338077835264

.@CybranSpiderbot you don't get good games by just giving people what they ask for. Game design isn't just polling.

You don't get good games by giving people what they want in the game they play?

Anyone have opinions on this?

Good games aren't designed by democracy. The old adage "too many cooks spoil the broth" applies here.

[Dasffion]

If you want an example of what happens when Devs listen to much to what players want see Death Knights at the beginning of Wrath. They listened too much to beta feedback and when DKs came out they were horribly overpowered.

[cFortyfive]

In general I agree - although that specific line doesn't really reflect that too well.

[sandmoth12]

I can see old raids being scaled up after a new expansion, but to do it for current content seems like a bad idea. Some trinkets from old raids would be miles ahead of new trinkets in current raids.

Atonement for heroic raids, not for normals/lfr. Only way I can see it working. It really doesn't add much gameplay though.

I liked attunements because they kept old content alive, and to me they gave a sense of journey to the game. I liked going on an adventure grouping up with random people to complete a long quest chain spanning multiple dungeons. It made the raid that much more epic feeling once I finally got their. It also serves to weed out the lazy. If you do not care enough to complete a simple attunement line to be able to raid, then I don't really think you will be very helpful in a real raiding situation.

[MaximusRex]

I honestly don't see why those 3 are so bad. They also have very good points about them to.

There is not a single good thing about required attunements, and that concept should never ever be brought back.

I don't get why so many people have such a hardon for attunements, my best guess is they are the ones who only ran it once and didn't have to help the other 29/24 people get it, and then when someone quit have to help the new person get it.

OP, you are missing the nuance in the discussion, they take player feedback, then if they think its good try and craft a good experance around that, but they just don't outright give people what they want.

[Deleted]

Doubt it. The game is made by a team who have their own opinions and vision of how the game should be like. Opinions which seem to be very much different than what the majority of players want. It has been done before, most obvious being the Star Wars Galaxies patch that ruined the game and even though the devs had plenty of time to revert the changes, they did not, choosing to piss on the playerbase and follow their own way into oblivion.