Do you trust Ghost Crawler?

[kenshinag]

He's a man with a job making video games the most fun he can for the most amount of people. I'm happy and have been happy playing so I'd say I like his decisions he makes in the game. I don't see how this is a valid question though. Why do I need to trust him at all? Trust him in doing what? Doing what he says he's going to do? Sometimes ideas don't work so proposals of features are held back or trashed. They always explain their reasoning in these decisions. I don't think many people understand them and just feel that they've been over promised and under delivered. That's the problem with tweets like that, at least in my opinion. People need to be more understanding and less spoiled about the decisions that GC and the dev team make of their game. If you don't like the decisions then leave but you have to give the reasoning behind those decisions a chance.

An example is how a lot of people dislike the dailies system in MoP. I've gotten a lot of gear from roll bonuses, easier time VP capping, and read a lot of lore from doing them so I don't mind them. It's a little strange to want to log in every day to keep an optimal pace on them but I make do and log when I can and do as much as I can. I like them a lot better than staying in Org queuing for dungeons/BGs. They've said that they want us out in the world with stuff to do and we got that. I like how roll bonuses are exclusive to them because it encourages me to do them. Same way awesome artwork on PVP sets encourages me to do PVP, Tier gear encourages me to raid, and challenge mounts and sets encourage me to do challenge modes.

[Deleted]

I trust him.
Why? Because it's his job to make this game as enjoyable as possible.
And even when I disagree with things they do, I know it's because of "a higher purpose".

Hint: the bigger purpose is get as much money in Blizzard's pockets. This purpose is not always compatible with your personal goals wrt WoW. For example, my class/spec (without alternative DPS spec) has been underperforming and I knew about this after a few weeks. I expected fixes, expansion is young, no biggie. Saw nothing of this sort. Whoever was responsible for this did a terrible job IMO. Those months were a waste of time. And all I still see today, is denial, while still claiming they know exactly about the statistics. My point being, damage control is in this case in the interest of Blizzard.

[Deleted]

I trust that he has a personal stake and interest in the game itself, and wants to make it better in his vision.

I trust that he is a hired professional with a single overriding goal to that end - making money for Blizzard.

I see these points to be in a permanent deadlock, I can't answer this poll.

[Doctor Amadeus]

No, absoulutly not, he has done not 1 thing to earn that trust, and for me there is no way for him to repair what trust he may have had.

[Magpai]

Anyone who seriously asks themself this question is taking the game way too personally.

[Deleted]

I doubt Activision in general have a large impact in the day to day running of Blizzard and their games. People seem to think "Zomg, Activision have made Blizzard a money whoring cash-cow" yet, by all accounts Blizzard is the "golden goose" that's trusted and left to their own devices and fairly long development cycles.

The #1 priority of any business is to make money, that's a given but then again people don't get in to the videogame business (just like the movie business) to make a mediocre game. Developers, artists, sound directors, producers... They want to make the best game possible AND have it be profitable - those two things are intrinsically linked.

Ghostcrawler is the public-facing, communicative face of the WoW development team and he does a bloody good job of explaining how and why they balance and make changes to, let's face it, seriously difficult areas of the game to "get right". Any change to a class mechanic has potentially class-breaking consequences whether it be in the PvP or PvE side of the game and having someone who actually takes the time to get on twitter, address some concerns and let people know that specific changes are being made can only be a good thing.

I understand people want to see their class get buffed... DKs, for example have been shouting about being squishy since MoP was released yet a little look around the forums shows that:

a.) Rogues are currently "terrible"
b.) Enhancement shamans feel squishy
c.) Ret paladins feel "squishy"
d.) Warriors are overpowered
e.) DKs feel squishy.
f.) Monks are currently under-represented and "poor" in PvP

With pretty much all the melee classes feeling underpowered could it just be that Warriors are a little OP at the moment and, come 5.2 everything will be a little more balanced?

I don't personally think Ghostcrawler could do a better job, he's one of many people who makes decisions regarding the game and its direction and does a decent job of keeping contact with the WoW subscribers when, tbh he doesn't need to. They could make decisions without saying anything and we'd all still pay/play.

[Sam the Wiser]

Trust is earned not given. So far he has not given me much to go on.

[dryankem]

Trust him with a blank check, no. Trust that he can do his job, yes.

[ScottsdaleHokie]

Trust him for what exactly, he's ruined the game.

[Deleted]

No i do not trust him, he is not alone in shaping the game, but he is the one that gives the green light to major changes being the lead designer, which makes me wonder how some things got introduced/changed in the first place.

[Deleted]

Never met the man why would i.

[Lana]

i trust him as far as i can throw him.

hmm, that doesn't seem like the correct idiom..

[Volbian]

I trust he's doing what's best for the company. There was alot of things that werent broke with classes and he changed them(never understood that).

If i were to trust one person based on passion and conviction, it would be Chris Metzen. That is all.

[Orangetai420]

Ehhh I trust him as much as I can. The game isn't going in the direction that I want it to but it's still quality. In that regard I trust him to make a quality game, I just don't think it's the game I will want to play in a couple years based on the way its headed.

[Deleted]

Ofcourse it doesn't allign with my personal goals.
But I want a company to cater to its audience, not to me personally.
I'm willing to have one or two slightly annoyances if that makes 100 people happy.

Why would you care about the audience? I really don't give a rat Bob the Hunter is having issues in arena because I don't play a hunter in arena. I care about issues with my class/spec. Now, of course its a skill to put it into perspective.

And what gives them as much money as possible? Happy customers.

True, but there's always special cases which they cannot please or won't spend the time to please, and if they did hurt a large group of people they'll do damage control.

---------- Post added 2013-02-04 at 07:46 PM ----------

If i were to trust one person based on passion and conviction, it would be Chris Metzen. That is all.

I wouldn't want to give that fellow the balance of A vs H if my life depended on it.

[RicardoZ]

I don't have anything against Ghostcrawler. He does his job well enough I guess, I don't know, I'm not a dev so I really can't comment on what Greg's job must be like. I've disagreed with some of the stuff he's done over the years, but oh well, can't have everything. Also the Dev staff is privy to information we don't exactly see/know about so when they make decisions they're a lot more informed than most people who have a very small tunnel vision view of the game (aka their class/spec and playstyle).

All of that said though, if this had been about Chris Metzen, the answer would have been a resounding NO!!!!!! Metzen has got to go. Seriously...please.

[Volbian]

I wouldn't want to give that fellow the balance of A vs H if my life depended on it.

I played this game for quite some time, faction rivalry, for me, has died along time ago. I play both sides, and i'm sure majority of the player base, does to.
This game seems to going into the direction of PVE vs PVP, then actual Ally vs Horde, in terms of game play.

Lore-wise, i wouldnt be surprised, if both sides become equal. Ally/Horde vs World threats/extinction of races.

[Awe]

I dont. I was playing WoW since Vanilla and I never took part in all those "fire X now!" movements. The game was OK. Ghostcrawler is the first designer who I think is taking the game into the wrong direction. I would prefer if he would move to other greener pastures. But maybe it is just me who got bored with WoW? I dont know. In any case, my own opinion is Ghostcrawler = bad designer.

[Deleted]

Well, Bob the Hunter could be my friend.
Just as Will the Warrior, Mike the Mage and several other characters.

What fun is a game when you can't enjoy it with other players, especially a MMO?

The point is that while your goal is noble you cannot simply, as an innocent bystander who plays the game, care about 34 specs even if you care about your friends and the game. GC can because he gets paid for it, and he is responsible for it. If he fails at it, he's the one we can address (if we self reflected on our argument since he's getting paid a lot and has a lot of work); nobody else.

[Giants41]

I trust him.