Tom Chilton Switching Projects, Ion Hazzikostas now Game Director

Originally Posted by ItachiZaku

Legion is one of the worst expansions I've played, seeing everyone leaving the project makes perfect sense. Some given the option to leave on their own, some being reassigned. Kinda cool of Blizz to not throw them under the bus.

How could you possibly even say that Legion is one of the worst expansions you've played? We're like a month and a half in! LOL! Even if you've only played since WoD you would still just be plain wrong (yes I'm saying your opinion is wrong, because it is).... By January there will already be just as many raids released as there were in the entirety of WoD! Don't get me wrong, Legion is not without its faults (like how unfriendly it has been to alts), but it is shaping up to be one of the better expansions they've ever released! WoD and Cata are almost universally accepted as being the worst expansions they've released, with WoD even coming in WAY behind Cata. Wrath and MoP seem to be the crowd favorites, with Wrath probably pulling ahead (I personally liked MoP more). BC I think would be the next in line, which is right about where I would put Legion currently. Just looking at all of the content poised to release in the next few months I can honestly see Legion jumping into the upper tiers of the history of WoW quite easily. I, for one, can't wait to see what comes next!

It's really not the end of the world.

He is not leaving, he's just focusing on another project within Blizzard and it appears everyone has high hopes for what this secret project may be!

Personally I'm really excited to find out at some point.... Even if it would be like Diablo related thing or something completely new,- doesn't matter. Blizzard always makes awesome games (sure some content here and there could be better but nobody is perfect) <3

Originally Posted by Kriixy

How could you possibly even say that Legion is one of the worst expansions you've played? We're like a month and a half in! LOL! Even if you've only played since WoD you would still just be plain wrong (yes I'm saying your opinion is wrong, because it is).... By January there will already be just as many raids released as there were in the entirety of WoD! Don't get me wrong, Legion is not without its faults (like how unfriendly it has been to alts), but it is shaping up to be one of the better expansions they've ever released! WoD and Cata are almost universally accepted as being the worst expansions they've released, with WoD even coming in WAY behind Cata. Wrath and MoP seem to be the crowd favorites, with Wrath probably pulling ahead (I personally liked MoP more). BC I think would be the next in line, which is right about where I would put Legion currently. Just looking at all of the content poised to release in the next few months I can honestly see Legion jumping into the upper tiers of the history of WoW quite easily. I, for one, can't wait to see what comes next!

My #1 reason: I'm a grinder, not a quester.

I play a lot of alts, usually not hitting max level until 2-4 months into an expansion. Yeah, it usually takes me that long to figure out what i want to do. this expansion, I was going with 1 toon. I went to 110, kicked some nuts 7-8 times, tried to level some alts - it's easy to start with the artifact quest, I don't mind that too much, but then having to help Nate not kill Genn another dozen times or watch all sorts of cool druids get corn holed left and right... and BEING FORCED to do it, if you want that alt to have any progression... naw bruh.

Frankly, I'm excited. WoW could use a little EJ in the stew maker to change things up a bit.

Legacy realms confirmed!!!

Originally Posted by ItachiZaku

Legion is one of the worst expansions I've played, seeing everyone leaving the project makes perfect sense. Some given the option to leave on their own, some being reassigned. Kinda cool of Blizz to not throw them under the bus.

Huh? I'd almost put Legion over WoTLK... this is coming from a guy who hated WoD so much I gave up WoW the first time I tried that Ashran abortion...everything about Legion is amazing.

Originally Posted by Rolex Snob

Huh? I'd almost put Legion over WoTLK... this is coming from a guy who hated WoD so much I gave up WoW the first time I tried that Ashran abortion...everything about Legion is amazing.

Ashran was my favorite part of WoD.

Originally Posted by ItachiZaku

Legion is one of the worst expansions I've played, seeing everyone leaving the project makes perfect sense. Some given the option to leave on their own, some being reassigned. Kinda cool of Blizz to not throw them under the bus.

I don't think it is worse than WoD or Cata, but it is a very average expansion and may suffer the same fate of WoD if it is not supported beyond patch 7.2

You guys act like the top bosses never get cycled out of a company. This is hardly "the sky is falling", he's been working on the game for 12 years - We need new blood so the game can evolve instead of continuing the same shit.

Originally Posted by Tenjen

Huh? The biggest sub rating was in Wotlk, the first expansion to make raiding accessible to all by throwing out vanilla/tbc design restrictions by balancing multiple difficulty and group tiers towards access right upto the LK by the regular player/casual raider. Its first raid was Naxx, as a benchmark example of this accessibility (since only 1% of players ever got to see the raid in vanilla).

You probably didn't raid back then, because if you did you would know there was overall dissatisfaction towards the new easy mode. The dungeons were a start, with grouping up and just facerolling everything. But that didn't really bother people because there were still raids. Naxx was relatively easy but still a nice raid to start with, also with the achievements of not dieing you could atleast get some fun out of it and display your skill. Then came Ulduar, with the insane hard modes and probably by far the best raid to be released at that time. It was for everyone but still didn't need to have multiple difficulties to accomplish that. Then came ToC and a lot of the players knew this wasn't going to be the game they wanted it to become. Probably most people waited it out until Lich King, then left when Cataclysm arrived.

Long story short, more numbers doesn't automatically mean it was in the best state at the time. Look at WoD's spike, you an also point to that and say it was the second best thing to ever happen to WoW, if you look only to the numbers that is. We all know better, as people should about Wotlk. Theme, by far the best. Design decisions, one of the worst.

Originally Posted by ent0mbed

Kind of cute... I bet you almost even have yourself convinced. You can sit out with all of those people who say they're fed up and unsub'ing (month after month after month).

I didn't say I was fed up. I think you misunderstand me. I am REALLY enjoying Legion... I haven't wanted to look for active organized raiding since WotLK and I'm doing it again.

There are a lot of cool games out there... other MMOs that I think would be really fun. But I play them all for a few levels, and I'm done. My feelings as I close up shop on those games is... "I'm really not interested in investing the time I have invested into WoW." Blizzard has a quality product with WoW... yes there are problems, and we can argue that point to its final stupidity but on the whole, Blizzard games and always have been TOP NOTCH.

To this day I don't consider myself an MMO player. I play WoW... thats pretty much it.

The trailer on the WCIII disc got me interested.

I remember checking Blizzard's homepage what felt like weekly, until the beta came out. I played that I invited a new friend I made to play, (who was big into EQ) he told me if you like MMOs you should try City of Heroes. Which I did (spent waaaay too much time in character creation) but even a fully developed and released game didn't hold a candle to the beta experience I had with WoW. So I stopped playing that. (At this time MMOs still had that EQ, basement dwelling, neckbeard, bathe once a month stigma).

I played SWTOR to level cap upon launch, and I haven't really played since (did some PvP no real endgame experience). There is truth to what @Yvaelle is saying about new, or even returning players being overwhelmed and intimidated once an MMO gets older. Now I think SWTOR has a superior 1 player experience/story. But I think Legion has really stepped up its game in that regard, I still think SWTOR is probably doing that better, but there are definite design choices there and I see the rationale behind not copying/ripping off or making a direct clone (and that goes both ways).

So like I said I don't really play MMOs I play WoW. I really love Blizzard products, so the likelihood that I would pick up WoW 2 is strong. My feelings about that commitment again are really that maybe I shouldn't. I feel like that would a lot easier to do if I didn't have a connection to a character/account that I enjoy playing.

He left the wow dev team to work on legacy servers, makes sense, he has worked on wow almost since the begging of it.

Fuck yes, this is expeptional good news! Ion Fuck Fluying Hazzikostas will make WoW Great again. The Raids were the only good thing in WoD (and have been really good in Cata and MoP), I am really hyped to see what greatness he will bestow upon all of WoW.

Maybe now we get finally some challenging Solo Content again?

Originally Posted by Sturmbringe

WoW is not a Democracy [Credit: Greg Street]

If it was left up to you and yours to vote for a Game Designer, you'd vote in a Kung Fu Panda who's into k3teenz and rides Pon33z (after My Little Pony) anyway.

Not sure what this has to do with someone who is leading a department and is responsible for the decisions his team has made. Also having been in lead positions myself, I can 100% assure you that you get more freedom to do what you want and your team has to do what you say... more than you might think. As a lead you are responsible for your team and how holinka has lead his team and found the designs hes responsible for, and he thinks its "the best pvp experience" is laughable.

This is the same guy who said it was acceptable that tanks be in top rated PvP(four 15+ minute games with a Prot pally at ~50% dampening in the NA regionals tourny)
This was the same guy that said mages have a heal, and considered blink a heal because it avoids damage so they have to consider mages and their healing potential.
This is the same guy who rarely shows up to PvP events, and when he does he is a complete ass to the players and doesn't even talk to them.
This is the same guy who said Ashran was the most amazing PvP experience that has ever been created in WoW

This list can go on and on.. but i think you get what I'm saying.

I can't tell you who I would put as game director, i don't work at blizz. I can sure as hell tell you it wouldn't be Holinka(again hired in 2012 coming from working on random small FPS games) who has zero experience leading any MMO design outside of WoW(which was his first MMO and had zero MMORPG, MMORPG PvP, and even MOBA design experience to begin with).


TL: DR - Lead designers get more say than people think. Holinka isn't qualified to be in the position he's in based on his background experience, much less to be a game director.

Tom might also be leaving to take the reins of the next Diablo title.

Originally Posted by xhisors

Not sure what this has to do with someone who is leading a department and is responsible for the decisions his team has made. Also having been in lead positions myself, I can 100% assure you that you get more freedom to do what you want and your team has to do what you say... more than you might think. As a lead you are responsible for your team and how holinka has lead his team and found the designs hes responsible for, and he thinks its "the best pvp experience" is laughable.

This is the same guy who said it was acceptable that tanks be in top rated PvP(four 15+ minute games with a Prot pally at ~50% dampening in the NA regionals tourny)
This was the same guy that said mages have a heal, and considered blink a heal because it avoids damage so they have to consider mages and their healing potential.
This is the same guy who rarely shows up to PvP events, and when he does he is a complete ass to the players and doesn't even talk to them.
This is the same guy who said Ashran was the most amazing PvP experience that has ever been created in WoW

This list can go on and on.. but i think you get what I'm saying.

I can't tell you who I would put as game director, i don't work at blizz. I can sure as hell tell you it wouldn't be Holinka(again hired in 2012 coming from working on random small FPS games) who has zero experience leading any MMO design outside of WoW(which was his first MMO and had zero MMORPG, MMORPG PvP, and even MOBA design experience to begin with).


TL: DR - Lead designers get more say than people think. Holinka isn't qualified to be in the position he's in based on his background experience, much less to be a game director.

Agreed 100%! I saw this announcement and was like WHAT??? Ion's an arrogant assclown that screws up everything he touches! And yet he gets a promotion??

I don't know if Blizzard doubling down on this idiot is the right direction... unless they are looking to kill WoW off.

Originally Posted by Cæli

well who cares wow is on the internet now there will always be servers

wow is on the internet? NO WAY!

Originally Posted by Furell

You probably didn't raid back then, because if you did you would know there was overall dissatisfaction towards the new easy mode. The dungeons were a start, with grouping up and just facerolling everything. But that didn't really bother people because there were still raids. Naxx was relatively easy but still a nice raid to start with, also with the achievements of not dieing you could atleast get some fun out of it and display your skill. Then came Ulduar, with the insane hard modes and probably by far the best raid to be released at that time. It was for everyone but still didn't need to have multiple difficulties to accomplish that. Then came ToC and a lot of the players knew this wasn't going to be the game they wanted it to become. Probably most people waited it out until Lich King, then left when Cataclysm arrived.

Long story short, more numbers doesn't automatically mean it was in the best state at the time. Look at WoD's spike, you an also point to that and say it was the second best thing to ever happen to WoW, if you look only to the numbers that is. We all know better, as people should about Wotlk. Theme, by far the best. Design decisions, one of the worst.

Didn't raid back then? Don't assume and swallow your own bullshit. I went from killing kelthuzad right down to killing the Lich King when it was current content. There was no "overall dissatisfaction". It was the same then as it was now. A vocal minority of whiners, some of whom didn't even accomplish any actual raiding, complaining about what they didn't understand and the rest? the "real raiders"? The direction they would have wanted would have killed the game and was killing the game. The new direction is exactly what sustained it.

The big miss steps were releasing the tourny and ICC too early in the cycle, cutting Ulduar brutally and regretfully short, which lead to a long ass wait afterwards while the world reset in cata consumed resources.

The initial argument i was countering was stating "numbers back then" incorrectly, so dont twist it around.

The fact remains, if Blizz had not made the decisions it had concerning non-exclusive raid design, WoW would not have survived as long as it did. There may have been missteps but this is not one of them. Hell the reason it survived all those missteps is because of it.

Originally Posted by Arrclyde-79

You do realize that Ion wasn't a designer or a developer before he came to WoW? He has been a lawyer when Blizzard hired him, which is pretty much closer to a PR-guy that should know how and what to say than a developer or designer.

Just... food for thought.

You most certainly cannot replace it with a guy who was originally a "blood sucking lawyer" before coming to Blizzard. (Ion Hazzikostas - NOT a fan of his)

Originally Posted by K4sk

You guys act like the top bosses never get cycled out of a company. This is hardly "the sky is falling", he's been working on the game for 12 years - We need new blood so the game can evolve instead of continuing the same shit.

Maybe new blood, but that's not enough.

We need designers that are humble enough to go back to the roots and understand why things were designed the way they were, and how not understanding this led to worse and worse decisions over the years: if a game is well done you can't simply decide to wipe this and that talent and switch this from a class to another or from a spec to another, because balancing is very hard, interesting gameplays and depth of play are very precious.

Designers that understand a new expansion is more than a single gimmick: let's replace talent trees with a few rows of 3 fake choices, let's give every capability to every class,let's remove 90 % of stats, and let's invent a few new retarded ones, because we're more than an RPG, let's steal most capabilities from most classes (pruning), let's force people to play a single spec and let's arbitrarily attribute capabilities to one spec only (class fantasy).

Designers who understand you can't be everything to every gamer, and understand there is no future in a 3 - button MMORPG, that the 24/7 grinding is already covered by Korean MMORPGs.

Converserly designers who play other games and are willing to take greats features from a game if its adaptable and relevant to WoW.

Designers who are ready to listen to players when possible (we want housing) and not systematically overdoing it to the extreme (garrisons).

And of course, to recognize the very few good ideas, such as reforging, that were added to the game over the years, and cherish and protect them.