Why ion hazzikostas is the best Game Director

[madrob]

bwahahahahahahaha

[Phuongvi]

He's doing what he want and doesnt care about the majority, he don't play the game for sure, or just a like pseudo leet players who log just to raid because they don't have time to do anything else.
Now nerfing everything thats is fun flying, leveling.
Basically, removing everything that he doesnt like and not giving a shit about feedback. He's someone on a power trip.

[Tydan]

I have just watched the Q&A and i must say, i am so happy that Ion Hazzikostas is the game director of my favorite game. Here is some reasons why:

He is passionate about the Warcraft universe.

He plays the game so he knows our struggle if something is broken or unfair.

He is not hiding behind pre-made words, he actualy says what he feels.

He is not afraid of talking about misstakes they,him, the team made/makes.

And last thing, his has a good sense of humor :-)

Do you guys agree with me? What else does do good? Does he piss you off?

He talks like a lawyer and gives politician answer. The Q&A's are an illusion.

[SirCowdog]

As a lead dev I think he's slowly turning the game away from fun and more into a profit generating machine.

The phrase "Fun detected, fun nerfed" applies to him more than any other game dev I can think of.

I also think that no matter what spin he puts on it, he's not open to anything that conflicts or alters his view of the game, even when presented with credibile data or valid criticisms. He just ignores it and does whatever.

[Osiria]

After everything Ion and Buddies are doing in BfA, between giving a cheap version of High Elves and throwning Night Elves under the bus, not to mention the grind and dragged leveling...

Yea, he can go suck a warglaive.

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As a lead dev I think he's slowly turning the game away from fun and more into a profit generating machine.

The phrase "Fun detected, fun nerfed" applies to him more than any other game dev I can think of.

I also think that no matter what spin he puts on it, he's not open to anything that conflicts or alters his view of the game, even when presented with credibile data or valid criticisms. He just ignores it and does whatever.

And we can blame him for that. He's the lead. WHich means he shows the stuff to the "big bosses" and they approve, so he goes back and tell everyone what to do.

These Allied Races are clearly a bait to pull people into alts, make them waste time or buy boosts.

I mean, the guy idea of fun is creating grind and meaningless resources. Customization? Actual options? Oh no, the horror! 14 years of game to add nothing but these ARs.

[Pigglix]

Ion is great, and tbh, im surprised he had the balls to deal with this toxic community doing the Q&A's instead of pulling a Celestalon and staying quiet.

But then the community would bitch about Blizzard being..too quiet, not communicating again, well, you guys know the drill way too well. Blizzard can never win.

Hell, im starting to think that the whoever get the public face, will get the same treatment as the current/next xpack, They will be hated by almost everyone (and by almost everyone i mean mostly the mmo c users), taking the "you ruined MY game, you ruined everything, you should be fired you sucker! And then when someone take his place, will be like, Man..what an idiot, can we have Ion back please?

[NMX-]

man, this thread has been kinda weird.

it's important to keep in mind he isnt the sole creator of wow. not every decision is made at his whim. the wow team is pretty big. something like 200-300+ people. artists. game designers. system designers. software engineers. project managers. QA members who specialize in wow. folks who are in charge of steering the story. talent-seekers. while not on the team, you have voice actors and actresses.

i dont know at what point you can be like, "hey you are the guy that i blame for this thing i dont like, and nobody else." it feels pretty ignorant like 75% of the posts in this thread. Is it because he's the face and name that you can recite but not anybody else?

despite whatever you say, these things you can tell from his Q&As:

(1) he is passionate and cares about the game. he wants what feels right to come out of the game. he knows when something feels bad, feels good, feels abusable, feels smart. he tries to stay out of pitfalls like Garrisons in WoD. he learns from what worked, and what didn't work, and improves it. no, not everybody will have the same opinion on what he does or how he does it. but opinions are opinions. and it's ok to have opinions on how legiondaries felt bad or good. it's ok to be bored of world quests. it's ok if you're not super impressed. just make sure your voice is heard in a constructive way. sometimes it's best to simply identify what doesnt feel good about the game than to be belligerent about it.

(2) his job is not easy. expansions always have to be a bit different than the previous one, which isn't something easy to do: re-invent the game with every expansion. new features. new rewards. he wants to stick to fast content launches and keep players engaged and playing. part of his job is finding ways to keep players playing a game that is 14 years old. yikes.

(3) he knows the game intricately. he knows the systems, and how they work. he knows the strengths and weaknesses of classes and how they play together in various content. he knows raid design. he knows game design.

[SL1200]

Wow Is in the worst shape it's ever been in. The last patch launch was chaos. Probably the worst game director in the industry.

[Deleted]

Why you are a Blizzard shill:

- this thread

[Black Rider]

Ion is great!
Game Director should be just like that!

[Theoris]

I like him. Good egg.

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Why you are a Blizzard shill:

- this thread

Wow, so clever.

[Mace]

He's an arrogant fucking asshole.

True, but the OP is right, he is passionate for the game, and he articulates well. You can also see he is very smart, and I suspect a lot of ideas have come from him, also the changing directions of the game, harking back to individuality etc, I suspect he is responsible for a lot of ace talent coming into the game development team to replace some of the legends that left.

And I must say, Legion was by far the best expansion, and I played them all save MoP. Yes, Legion replaces WotLK and TBC as my all time favourite in every regard, every detail of the game was better, unlike previous expansions that had some things better, somethings worse. It's like Legion was finally the finished article of hte game, despite my issues with the storyline progression of certain races and groups.

[Puupi]

I prefer him over his predecessors. He seems to understand what's going on and actually plays the game.

Whether he is a good game director or not, none of us know.

[Deleted]

He's awesome.

[IceMan1763]

Neat
/10char

Owned?
/10char

[Kyphael]

He was one of the three lead game designers of WoD.

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BFA is actually the first game he has Game Director credit (Assistant Game Director in Legion - Tom Chilton has the main Game Director credit), so I guess we'll have to wait and see how it pans out.

WoW has only had three Game Directors: Jeffrey Kaplan (Wrath), Tom Chilton (Cata-Legion) and Ion Hazzikostas (BFA)
Vanilla didn't have Game Director, though Mark Kern had the title of "Team Lead" and probably did "game directory" things and TBC didn't have one.. just three Lead Designers - Pardo, Kaplan and Chilton, I guess they got along just fine without directorship.

Ah, interesting. People keep crediting him for being game director during Legion.

[Axaion]

Owned?
/10char

Not really, was a neat read. - you might be right, but youre still an ass =)

[IceMan1763]

Not really, was a neat read. - you might be right, but youre still an ass =)

Fair enough... I can definitely be a smug SOB . I think people forget just how good some former leads actually were (especially GC, who has had a successful career in this industry with multiple games). Or at the very least, they designed a game that I enjoyed far more than I enjoy the kind of expansion legion was. The sad part is, with a few reasonable adjustments to some of the systems (quickly WF/TF max +10 ilevels, rolling cap that increased weekly for AP gains, anything besides what they chose to distribute Legiondaries to name a few) Legion could have been right up there with WOTLK. The actual content was very good... it was the BS grinding systems and RNG littered everywhere which stunk up the whole joint and made me unsub.

Legion was a failure at the systems level and Ion is the lead dev, that means he was ultimately responsible for decisions like randomly distributed legendaries, which I see as one of the worst decisions ever made design wise in the game. Having good systems in a game is very important, and Ion just doesn't think these things through. I also feel like he's incapable of looking back and admitting mistakes... at least publicly.

[derpkitteh]

a corporate shill lawyer, happily embracing every scummy business decision blizz can make.

wonderful game director. simply wonderful. now buy a boost and be a good little consumer.

[bloodwulf]

He gets shit on a lot, but that is the same reason Greg Street left, he was the face of the development team, and people blamed him for everything. I like Ion, he is humble and passionate (though not Ben Brode levels passionate unfortunately). I don't blame him for design decisions i dislike, because he is a member of a team. Legion is a shining example of a largely good expansion, with some fun raids and great story.