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

[Yag]

Yet the game was growing back then unlike now, so maybe, just maybe, players like to be challenged and stick around for a longer time if everything can't be completed in 2 weeks of afking in LFR.

Imo Ghostcrawler should step down, in the short time he has been at the head of WoW, sub numbers went back 6 years to the ending of Vanilla, and say what you want about the game being dated, if it was still enjoyable like it was pre ghostcrawler era, most of the ppl that left would probably be playing right now.

Actually, what you post should be the reason to keep him in the position.
You are not factoring the game's age and the (very real) burning out people experience, you are even dismissing it from your opinion. His solution to the game's age is accessability, which is actually making the game last longer for a lot of people.

Or what, you really expect the game to be as engaging as it was in BC? If it was true, people would still be in Outland, happily doing Netherstorm quests and going for their 4th alt with Loremaster of Outland. The demand for faster end-game content would be non-existant. And Nobody, ever would utter the word "I am bored", especially considering how awesome BC was in the minds of so many people, people would just go and do Shadowmoon quests in all their alts.

[krisusu]

Seems pretty silly to me to think that firing GC would fix the game. He's merely one cog in the Blizzard machine. He controls a lot but not everything. The general direction of the game would almost certainly stay the same if he were removed.

[Osmeric]

Yet the game was growing back then unlike now, so maybe, just maybe, players like to be challenged and stick around for a longer time if everything can't be completed in 2 weeks of afking in LFR.

GC himself has mocked this argument. It's far more likely that the game was growing then in spite of being hard, not because of it. They tried to go back to difficult in Cataclysm and it failed to prevent a decline.

The more reasonable theory is that the game grew while it had a large population of "MMO virgins" to churn through, and began to decline when that supply ran low.

[theWocky]

Lose his job? No. Why on earth would he? He's an awesome bloke, a fine representative for Blizzard.

Game is old. Nothing he can do about it. In fact, he should be rewarded for doing what he can to breathe life into it.

[Marema]

GC himself has mocked this argument. It's far more likely that the game was growing then in spite of being hard, not because of it. They tried to go back to difficult in Cataclysm and it failed to prevent a decline.

The more reasonable theory is that the game grew while it had a large population of "MMO virgins" to churn through, and began to decline when that supply ran low.

This and the fact that people who raided a lot back then have (or at least should have) more responsibility and less time to raid 40+ hours a week that it took in BC to get anywhere. People forget that none of us see the reasons people leave the game. For all we know the few million left because the game is too time consuming, and we could potentially see the game get even more casual friendly.

There is also the fact that the age group that would start playing WoW for the first time are all playing on their smart phones or other hand held devices. Why sit at your computer for hours to play a game when you can get instant gratifcation on the couch watching TV playing Words with Friends or something? I have a shit ton of cousins that are 14-25 and not a single one of them play a computer game.

[Destruktion]

You can admit you were having fun. Even I admit I was having fun at the time. That's ok and normal, otherwise we wouldn't have been playing the game.

Where things goes into nostalgia territory is when people say "things were lot better when..." while it actually wasn't better. They remember the feeling of having fun back then, but for the wrong reasons. Nobody had fun farming 200 demonslaying potions per Sunwell week and "dumbing down" like limiting consumables use did make the game better, but all people remember they had fun raiding in Sunwell in their guild which they associate into "raiding in TBC was better than now" if they aren't really happy in their current guild. It has got nothing to do with the state of the game, objectively speaking.

Maybe the trade-off is worth it for some people i.e. depth at the expense of convenience.

Sunwell is a poor example though, because as is oft-repeated around here, something like less than 1% of the playerbase experienced that content.

[dokilar]

no i dont think so, i dont think they would fire him even if they lost another 3-4 million subs

[Fojos]

He's responsible for everything but lore and quests pretty much.

Tom Chilton is the lead game designer, so GC has nothing (well, not his focus) to do with raid design as well.

[WyvernVin]

Yet the game was growing back then unlike now, so maybe, just maybe, players like to be challenged and stick around for a longer time if everything can't be completed in 2 weeks of afking in LFR.

Or maybe players are growing up? I don't know how old are you but in my case many stuff has happened since my semi-hardcore raiding days, i just don't have the time to commit to those activities again and have become a casual player ...so casual that my sub is "paused" at the moment. And yet the game was fairly new at that time ...even running through Outland was awe inspiring ...now it's just a nuisance. The game is getting old and that's who we must blame for the sub losses.

GC is not perfect at his work, but who is? No matter who you put in charge, the game will continue declining until it stabilizes barely above the average of sub-payed MMO's.

In my case, one of the reasons i currently cancelled my sub has nothing to do with gameplay (or maybe it does) but on the fact that the story on the Alliance side has become boring and the Horde bias has kept growing since the TBC days. Patch 5.3 was a big disappointment to me and you can't blame it all on one single person.

[Deleted]

Firing personnel isn't going to change the fact that is a product lifecycle. If your business is struggling (it's not) because your almost 10 year old MMORPG is gradually losing its players (still subs in the millionS), then you simply need to phase it out (they shouldn't) and introduce a new IP (they should).

So no, firing Ghostcrawler is not going to happen, nor will it have any effect on the business end of World of Warcraft if it does happen.

[MasterHamster]

No matter who has his position, people will be taking shits all over him for every decision the WoW team takes.
People who actually are in charge related to WoW, knows full well that GC is doing a good job.

And really, why are there still people here who thinks the game has been shit ever since BC ended? That's almost five fucking years ago. Do something else with your time.

[Destruktion]

There is also the fact that 30+ million people played and left during the span of Vanilla/TBC/WoTLK too. So overall player retention was still quite poor in the oh-so-amazing Vanilla/TBC era when you look at the numbers. So the people that use the argument you quoted are making an even worse argument than they realise.

Where did you get 30+ million? Seems exorbitant.
If I recall correctly, sometime during WotLK it was publicly announced that more players had played and left WoW than were currently playing WoW, which I gather was around 10-12 million.

[Deleted]

Where did you get 30+ million?

Random Number Generation.

The expertise of every MMO-Champion member when discussing something.

[Deleted]

Definitely no.Why would he?He is doing his best to balance fulfilling player's wishes and doing his job,not matter what people say.Unlike other developers,he actually communicates with the community about the game.People will always complain,no matter what.And he is generally awesome.So no.

[vesseblah]

Maybe the trade-off is worth it for some people i.e. depth at the expense of convenience.

Don't confuse depth with complexity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI4Gs9Gt2Iw

Sunwell is a poor example though, because as is oft-repeated around here, something like less than 1% of the playerbase experienced that content.

Sunwell is great example because people it's also often repeated here that it was the best raid ever. There were plenty of things wrong with it that people tend to gloss over with nostalgia goggles, like for example the chain potting and the farming requirements to support it.

Where did you get 30+ million? Seems exorbitant.
If I recall correctly, sometime during WotLK it was publicly announced that more players had played and left WoW than were currently playing WoW, which I gather was around 10-12 million.

Morhaime said it in some interview or investor call, late Cata IIRC. During WLK it was already twice as much had played than were currently subbed.

[Osmeric]

I don't remember who at Blizzard said it, maybe Morhaime, but it was certainly mentioned to be 30 million and more. I'll see if I can find it...

I believe 30 million was the total number that had ever played, not the total number of ex-players. Still, ex-players outnumber current players by a factor of several.

[BetrayedOf52]

He saw this thread, Idk if it's posted yet


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>MMOC forums let me keep my job again. Whew.</p>&mdash; Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/statuses/363187762016423938">August 2, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[elderamy]

I find this pool offensive and childish...

but i'll take the bait!
I believe he does an awesome job and that the community asks all from him/blizzard, and even more. They ask Yes and No at the same time! they ask them to paint stuff Blue and Red and white and black and green, eetc all at the same time!

[Deleted]

Don't confuse depth with complexity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI4Gs9Gt2Iw

I love extra credit, the guy knows what the hell he's talking about

[Schadow]

If anything, that guy will get a promotion as he is the most famous person in all of Blizzard Entertainment now.