Do you think Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street will lose his position ?

[Deleted]

GC is just a scapegoat, giving face and name to the developer team.

Because being the lead dev has nothing to do with responsibility?

[Mawnix]

Because being the lead dev has nothing to do with responsibility?

Of course he's responsible for some decisions. He's not responsible for ALL of them.

Hell, half the choices you people who now hate WoW have pegged GC for making may have been done by someone else on the design team.

[ShimmerSwirl]

They really should shake things up and bring fresh blood in. The approach they have taken the last few years has only resulted in massive sub losses.

[Wildmoon]

Would i like him to be demoted? Sure would, he is partly to blame for the monstrosity wow has turned into. Will he be fired? No.

They kept jay wilson and you guys saw the craptastic way he handled D3. There are 2 indie games (Torchlight II and Path of Exile) that are vastly superior to a group of seasoned professionals that were brought onto the team with nearly limitless funds to make a sequel to already booming franchise. And they still bombed so hard that the even the hardcore diablo players have jumped ship.

WoW hasn't turned into montrousity you are talking about for me. In fact if WoW didn't adapt then it would have lost more subs. While D3 is not really a good enough for its name but I don't really think 2 games you mentioned are good game too after I have played them. They are mediocre at best.

[Deleted]

Of course he's responsible for some decisions. He's not responsible for ALL of them.

Hell, half the choices you people who now hate WoW have pegged GC for making may have been done by someone else on the design team.

Probably, I think it is fair to say that with "GC" it is actually meant to replace the whole design team.
On the other hand, if you're leading and building up a team, you will look for people to join your team that matches your design philosophy ... so at the end GC is responsible for the team he has built.

Personally I think the game has to be brought back, to some extend, to the line it was at bc+wotlk.

That does not mean scrap everything that has been implended since then, but getting back to what made WoW so great and interesting.

WoW hasn't turned into montrousity you are talking about for me. In fact if WoW didn't adapt then it would have lost more subs. While D3 is not really a good enough for its name but I don't really think 2 games you mentioned are good game too after I have played them. They are mediocre at best.

It wasn't said that the two games are great ... but what was said is that those two game by independed developers made a better diablo game than the original company.

[Seefer]

1. By this point he has a few years experience running the systems piece of World of Warcraft to go with his Age of Empires piece.
2. Game play over lore: His responsibility is game play. Of course that's what he would say.
3. Balance: I don't think there's been a single day since 2005 when someone hasn't complained about balance.
4. You'd prefer to see less homogenization and so would I. If that happens there will be more problems with balance.

The rest is just you spouting stuff angrily. You might think the game play was better two expansions ago. Others might disagree. Street has little-to-nothing to do with the story so blame Metzen for that.

Balance is not really difficult, you make a pvp spec so you don't need to worry about off setting that with pve which is the BIGGEST issue with balance but unlike say Rift..........Blizzard isn't smart enough to put in a pvp spec, as for homogenization..........well simple really, get rid of this bring the player not the class bullshit and make classes WORTH choosing again.

[The Glitch]

Balance is not really difficult, you make a pvp spec so you don't need to worry about off setting that with pve which is the BIGGEST issue with balance but unlike say Rift..........Blizzard isn't smart enough to put in a pvp spec, as for homogenization..........well simple really, get rid of this bring the player not the class bullshit and make classes WORTH choosing again.

I think you may not be too smart if you think Blizzard have never thought of putting in a PvP spec. I am pretty sure they have touched on this subject before and gave reasons why it wasn't viable.

And as for getting rid of bring the player not the class, how about ..no? I remember a time when certain classes were pretty much shunned from any group content, due to not having reliable AOE, or CC, or hell just because their dps or tanking trees sucked ass. Rolling a certain spec because its what you want to play, only to be told, sorry nope, when trying to progress within a raid/guild/dungeon environment isn't fun.

[Caliph]

i havn't read anybody else's comments thus far because i don't want to get peeved at all of the non sensical retorts. I am just hoping he gets canned like really fast. he's a complete moron imo. it's like 5 years now and he's still stupid.

[Seefer]

I think you may not be too smart if you think Blizzard have never thought of putting in a PvP spec. I am pretty sure they have touched on this subject before and gave reasons why it wasn't viable.

And as for getting rid of bring the player not the class, how about ..no? I remember a time when certain classes were pretty much shunned from any group content, due to not having reliable AOE, or CC, or hell just because their dps or tanking trees sucked ass. Rolling a certain spec because its what you want to play, only to be told, sorry nope, when trying to progress within a raid/guild/dungeon environment isn't fun.

It is viable, they just don't want to, if other games can do it so can Blizzard if they want to put it in, as for your response to bring the class not the player? At least it doesn't make every damn class the same! That's part of what is making this game so mind bleeding BORING!

P.S Love the avatar.

[Fagatronics]

I'm not saying GC should be fired but I am surprised there hasn't been some type of firings or shake up in the devs roster. When a game's been in decline for a few years, one would suspect someone would shoulder the blame/be accountable.

I applaud Blizz if they believe their dev team is talented enough to stop the sub hemorrhaging and create a better and more profitable game. But the cynical side of me believes it may just be arrogance on the side of Blizz.

[Conscious]

If the next expansion's quarterly report has anything but subscriber increases - I'm willing to bet some big money he'll be pulled in lieu of someone who can slow the game down from dying, if not maybe stop it.

[Aquamonkey]

This is Ghostcrawler's role as Lead Systems Designer: "Systems design specifically is everything that is not level, story, quest or encounter design. My team handles everything from classes to mechanics to items to trade skills to achievements to UI design, and that includes the game balance."

[Gorthezar]

Nope won't happen.

[MrRum]

I don't doubt the guy is grossly out of touch with class balance/mechanics, but hardly worth a demotion. Most everything else is out of his control, honestly.

[Omega10]

I don't know if he OP meant this to be a support GC thread, but the 80% approval rate he has gotten shows that the community here is behind him, and that the anti-GC threads are mostly just a lot of hot air. If 8 people post one time supporting him, and 2 people post 4 times hating him, thats not a 50-50 split that is the 80-20 approval rate we have here.

- - - Updated - - -

"GC, believe it or not, has actually helped improve the game (not saying he hasn't also hurt the game in some ways). None of his decisions make it into the game without the go ahead from someone above him. GC is literally just the face for all you angry nerds to direct your hate these days, nothing more."

Hey... as a non-angry nerd I would appreciate NOT being associated with the GC haters!

[Blockygame]

Why? sub losses aren't his fault, they're the fault of a game getting old and a system that has been reworked as far as humanly possible to great success. He doesn't get to decide what happens, he's tasked with implementing what he's been asked to and finding the best and most efficient way to do it. He's in charge of heading the development of a product expressly mapped out by the company he works for.

Besides, he's great forum fodder for fucking idiots to whine about.

[MoanaLisa]

Because being the lead dev has nothing to do with responsibility?

He's not the lead dev or the game director. He's the lead systems dev which leaves a ton of the game to someone else's control.

[Tharkkun]

As I've said before about GC, I don't have strong feeling on him either way. Sometimes he says things that make an awful lot of sense and I find myself agreeing with, other times he leaves me sat there thinking "wat".

I feel his greatest weakness is class balance, sometimes he says things about classes that just plain don't make any sense, and sometimes I feel his understanding of how some classes work is lacking in some areas and that he should think more before replying to critisicm.

Other than that, I certainly do not envy his position, he has a very tough job, he has alot of people to try and please, and for the most part he does a great job, I suspect alot of reasons for people leaving WoW are out of his hands, and it would seem very unfair for him to lose his position.

I believe Ghostcrawler (and his team) know more about class balance than any theorycrafters do. They have a insight into where it all happens. The twist is sometimes they have to just let things go (time is money friend) and see how players adapt. Otherwise we'd probably never see any new mechanics in this game.


Overall Ghostcrawler is a single point of contact. Players funnel all their rage into him versus lashing out at every employee and moderator inside Blizzard. Before GC stuck his neck into the public we had a few individual class leaders and they were all berated non stop. Now it's just mr crab. The rest hide behind him and do their job. That makes it easier from a CS standpoint to collect feedback and all the other shit they do instead of fighting the player base at the same time.

I really like someone who tells it like it is instead of sugar coating everything. The same thing happened in Daoc with Tweety or whatever her name was. The problem was she was dumber than a box of rocks and apologized constantly. Or Sony where they never said a word.

[MoanaLisa]

Balance is not really difficult, you make a pvp spec so you don't need to worry about off setting that with pve which is the BIGGEST issue with balance but unlike say Rift..........Blizzard isn't smart enough to put in a pvp spec, as for homogenization..........well simple really, get rid of this bring the player not the class bullshit and make classes WORTH choosing again.

I have yet to read a forum for almost any MMO, from EQ to Rift to SW:TOR to everything in-between that doesn't have people complaining about balance. So I don't know that I'd say it's not really difficult. I agree though that they should just sever PVP/PVE abilities entirely. I think that's the start of the only workable solution. I also agree that 'bring the player, not the class' was a very large mistake and one that doesn't get talked about very much. It may have more to do with how long-time games players view their classes now than people realize and I'm not convinced that it's a positive view. Having well-defined roles and then filling those specific roles with a certain amount of expertise and skill is pretty engaging stuff and should extend well beyond tanking/damage/healing.

[Noorri]

Ghostcrawler is an important part of what makes WoW still alive and well, and I think he will only be kept in his position or promoted. At least as long as he wants to have the job. Most of the hate against him is simply because he is the biggest PR face of Blizzard, if Tom Chilton took over twitter spamming he would get the hate instead of GC.