Developer Q&A with Ion Hazzikostas - Battle for Azeroth

[Dracullus]

Oh, I see that "Fire Ion/devs, I obviously didn't watched Q&A, but read few lines from MMO-Champ, so I'm expert" squad arrived already.

[sillag]

ion's vision is of a world where wow loses all its subs and blizzard is forced to let him work on overwatch instead and ruin a whole new genre of game

[RobertoCarlos]

Why are you still wearing that shitty shirt.

This post made me giggle

[DesoPL]

Ofc no mention about gold inflation...

[Sastank]

Yawn. Another Q&A another chat flooded with sperg kids spamming about Classic.

[Mendzia]

Why would we ever make a change that people don't like or doesn't feel good? The team knows the initial reaction would be negative. At the end of the day, they want everyone to enjoy the game and it to feel good.

Translate: You think you do but you don't.

Feedback about what feels bad about your spec after the GCD changes is helpful. Asking to revert the change because it is bad isn't helpful.

Translate: Fuck you. We know everything better.

When you kill a boss, it isn't about if there is something on the corpse that you want, but if someone is going to give you that loot. It disconnects the reward from killing the boss.
You deserve the loot for killing the boss.

Translate: Fuck your guilds. We will now decide about your fun.

[THEORACLE64]

Why would we ever make a change that people don't like or doesn't feel good? The team knows the initial reaction would be negative. At the end of the day, they want everyone to enjoy the game and it to feel good.

Translate: You think you do but you don't.

Feedback about what feels bad about your spec after the GCD changes is helpful. Asking to revert the change because it is bad isn't helpful.

Translate: Fuck you. We know everything better.

When you kill a boss, it isn't about if there is something on the corpse that you want, but if someone is going to give you that loot. It disconnects the reward from killing the boss.
You deserve the loot for killing the boss.

Translate: Fuck your guilds. We will now decide about your fun.

Well, it is their game. So... don't like it, leave.

[Shedim]

I absolutely accept and understand the GCD changes.

The personal loot changes in organized raiding just seems a bad choice though and is removing player\guild choice over which method they prefer. Removal of choices is usually a bad thing.

Also, is the Ion hate train the new circlejerk, similar to the ghostcrawler one years ago?

Yes. This thread is a goldmine of whining and complaining.

[Cthulhu fhtagn]

Reading the comments here is quite disheartening. I truly hope there never will be a game director that actually starts changing the vision of their team because someone calls them an arrogant wanker. Personally this q&a put my mind at ease.

[oathy]

ion's vision is of a world where wow loses all its subs and blizzard is forced to let him work on overwatch instead and ruin a whole new genre of game

when Wow tokens were launched they said a close eye would be kept on the cost
thats totally out the window. the way its heading 500k each seems highly likely
meaning for a lot of people its the turning point. Use Real money or quit

there's a perfect storm brewing here. the negative feedback is 100% like WOD
it wasnt this bad in legion. that should worry the hell out of them (but it wont)

[Risale]

Death Knights and Allied Races

There are no plans to let the Hero classes be an Allied Race in Battle for Azeroth, but it possible in future expansions.
There is value in defining that Allied Races start at Level 20.

This to me is the biggest of all piles of BS he has sprouted in the past year.
I want my DK to be a Dark Iron dwarf, it is pretty easy for Blizz to adjust the lore a bit, hell the Zandalar were on Northrend so they could easily be DK's.
But nope not going to happen for some stupid reason and it is stupid because lots of folks would race change in a heart beat.
Oh and DI's can be monks for some reason.

[Galateacyc]

Ion has convinced me about pruning. WoW needs pruning. It's clear to me now that the necessary pruning is the position of Game Director.
It takes a special kind of arrogance to field question after question of acknowledged unpopular changes and basically reply "though sh!t - deal with it". If anything is "unhelpful", it's that.
I pity the people still playing.

[Yot]

"In Cataclysm you could take a portal to all of the zones and your guild could use a summon, so players could log in, teleport to the raid, and log off. Taking guild summon away was met with negative feedback, but the ease of transportation was bad for the game."

I do not understand how warlock portals or summoning stones don't counter this point.

[Notshauna]

Well, it is their game. So... don't like it, leave.

Millions have and millions more will. Hell at this rate everyone will.

[oathy]

Ofc no mention about gold inflation...

its gone utterly insane.
Not just the Devs but blizzard know how many people play the game via gold/tokens
and the price is just going crazy. Trouble for them are they going to provide enough for people
to start paying real money to play. At the moment that seems doubtful

[tyrlaan]

Millions have and millions more will. Hell at this rate everyone will.

Except no.

I don't understand how people continue to interpret "vocal minority" as majority.

I get beefs with the game and its design, even if I don't agree with said beefs. But the hyperbolic claims of majority are so TBC.

[Life-Binder]

High Elves

Blood Elves are basically High Elves. Slightly different eye color and backstory, but if you want to be a light skinned elf, that is basically a Blood Elf. Giving that to the Alliance would blur the line between factions.
There aren't a ton of High Elves out there in WoW.
If you are Alliance any want to be an elf, the Horde is there for you.


Horde

The Horde being evil is a matter of perspective.
The Horde has many facets to it, with the Forsaken representing different things than the Tauren. There has been an uneasy partnership between these groups for some time. The Horde isn't monolithic.
There are groups are fighting for survival and some resort to desperate measures.
Both sides should be worried about becoming evil.
All the way back to Orcs vs Humans, you may have assumed Humans were the good guys and Orcs were evil, but t here was more nuance than that.

holy shit I LOVE this Q&A !!


a whole lot of MMO-C posters just got owned with those lines

[Mhyroth]

Well, it is their game. So... don't like it, leave.

And who pays for the game do you think?
Treat your customers properly and with respect (and listen to their feedback). That's how long-standing companies are still going strong to this day and have a returning customer base who come for the quality they enjoy and are willing to pay for.

[Sett]

Without trying to champion that shite excuse. The fact they've not done another netrual race may suggest they regret pandaren set up and hence not done it since.

Pandora's box is already open. Players have shown they're able to understand lore differences between the Pandaren.


It's quite strange to see Alleria with a normal complexion while the players have to sport something else completely. Also, Alliance has several choices for playing blue-skinned races. We didn't need another. They should have gone further with the void visuals and not leave us with three skin tones that are nearly identically.

[Zelk]

Comments on Personal loot were ridiculous, and the idea that most criticism is just "stop the pruning" is fucking delusional.