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

[Tharkkun]

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.

Sorry but 12 million Diablo 3 copies versus 2 million Torchlight 2 shows the clear winner. Path of Exile is doing slightly better but I'd much rather hire someone who can make a company more money.

[Fullmetal89]

Sorry but 12 million Diablo 3 copies versus 2 million Torchlight 2 shows the clear winner. Path of Exile is doing slightly better but I'd much rather hire someone who can make a company more money.

To be fair, Torchlight 2 is an indie game that doesn't have a ridiculously popular brand name. If it wasn't for the "Diablo" in Diablo 3 the game would not have sold well at all. Marketing a game with a highly respected brand name is a lot easier then a little known dungeon crawler. Also it doesn't hurt that the developer is also one of the popular in the world. Its why Bioware made an MMO about Star Wars and not Mass Effect.

[Pr0ev0lution]

why would anyone get fired because wow has dropped subs? 13 million subs a few years back was brilliant but was never going to last.

you have to remember wow is what 9 years old this year. those of us in our mid 20s now, if we started playing at launch were around 15, those in mid 30s were around 25. you can lay the blame at GC or a certain expansion all you like but the reality is people grow up and move on. for all the people on forums bitching about one game design choice is going to cause them to quit, the silent majority who have quit are more than likely to be quitting due to real life stuff like school, jobs, relationships, financial concerns and what not.

so yes sure some of GC's and every other designers decisions are going to have led to a good chunk of sub losses. however you have to look at the bigger picture, at the end of the day wow is almost 10 years old so yes its going to loose subs, but so long as your enjoying the game and its still been supported i don't get why its a big deal.

[Shampro]

As much as I enjoy WoW, I certaintly dont envy his job. Jesus, just look at those tweets.

[Seefer]

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.

Wait.............we agree? *heart attack* lol <3

[Youarefired]

Fired for making decisions on a game that is theirs to make decision on in the first place? Nahhhhhhhhh...

[Deleted]

To be fair, Torchlight 2 is an indie game that doesn't have a ridiculously popular brand name. If it wasn't for the "Diablo" in Diablo 3 the game would not have sold well at all. Marketing a game with a highly respected brand name is a lot easier then a little known dungeon crawler. Also it doesn't hurt that the developer is also one of the popular in the world. Its why Bioware made an MMO about Star Wars and not Mass Effect.

This.

D3 has been sold so well because D2 was a masterpiece and people were looking forward to it because of the legacy.
There was a reason why blizzrd refused to release any information about d3 beyond act1 till release.

So the huge amount of sold copies were not because the game is so great but because the name and franchise used to be and blizzard used to make good games.

But this nimbus is fading pretty fast.
It would be way more accurate to see how many people are still playing d3 and then comparing it to how many people are still playing d2.

Also I think Torchlight and Path are heavyly suffering from the fact that after the huge disapointment d3 has been, people are no longer that interested in 2d dungeon crawlers.


But anyway.

This thread is ... interesting but it is not fair to demand GCs head alone. It should be more like:
"Should the current dev team be replaced or not"

So I'm not demanding to fire GC he does a good job, but he deffinately lost the connection to the game and thus he (and his team) shoudl be shifted to another game to have them and wow getting fresh air.

[Deleted]

I think he needs to be moved to different position and get someone with fresh vision and ideas. He's got quite a lot good ideas in WotlK especially, but as with all people, run out of ideas eventually.

[Deleted]

Nope. As far as Blizzard is concerned he's doing a good job.

The question is how much bullcrap will he accept from the community before he steps down from that role, like Kalgan did before him.

[Deleted]

Nope. As far as Blizzard is concerned he's doing a good job.

I agree with this he is doing kind of good job, but fresh ideas are what he has run out of.

[RoKPaNda]

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.

While D3's economy is pretty lulzy, it's still a very active game. I'll give you PoE, I really enjoyed PoE for awhile and I think that it's an incredible game. It will stay fresh longer than D3 because the economy is much better. Torchlight 2 failed, and it failed extremely hard. Like D3 it sold very well, but it somehow managed to have even less staying power than D3 did despite not having D3's economic woes. Which really surprised me because I expected much better from TL2.

[Geodew]

Very relevant:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9572657811
I'm the OP of that thread, if it weren't obvious :P

[Gizmoe]

Yeah looks like he's really worrying about what's said here.

https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...87762016423938

[Deleted]

I would say that most investors who have been betting on WoW for a long time is not at all disappointed with the retention of wow subs.
There has never been any other MMO that has ever held as many paying customers for as long as WoW has. It's only people on forums who believe that WoW should last forever.

Do blizzard try to extend the lifetime of WoW for as long as possible? Ofcourse, but they must have known for years that they are on the downhill slope for the game. It not about increasing the amounts of subs, but about slowing the decline.

[TrollShaman]

While I dont think he should lose his job (i voted the wrong choice), it'd be interesting to see what his future replacement can do that GC doesn't.

[Itakas]

It all comes down to what did blizz as a company predict would happen with wow subs etc. If they had predictions that wow subs would drop to 5-6mil and they are at 7,7mil in their eyes he is doing a good job, ofc if they predicted having 8,5mil subs and are at 7,7mil they might have a chat with him.

But all in all, its not 1 person problem/mistakes that lead to drops in subs, would be too easy if it was.

[LCDArcade]

Greg Street ‏@Ghostcrawler 7m
MMOC forums let me keep my job again. Whew.

Hahah he read this thread.

[TaurenNinja]

GC's main area is class balance. And at least for PvE, he has done a great job. PvE class balance is much better than a few years back.
For PvP balance, I tend to think he didn't give enough of a damn about it, always ignoring PvP balance issues if a fix would affect PvE as well.
But Blizzard now has a different guy working on that (Brian Holinka). So maybe PvP balance will start to improve now.

[Deleted]

Why should he?
GC is just the Lead Systems Designer. Tom Chilton is the Lead Game Designer and the Game Director for WoW.

[Radio]

I voted Yes, replace him as Lead Systems Designer and make him the Supreme Systems Designer.