Why ion hazzikostas is the best Game Director

[Netharel]

He is great imo, the mistake here is blaming Ion for the inevitable changes WoW universe passes through. Cmon, after all the disasters (cata, wod) how bad can bfa be? keep up the good work boi.

[IceMan1763]

How do you get people to play your game? Make them like it. Only a minority will stick around with a game they don't like because they feel like they "have" to, and people will jump ship if there's enough game designs that aren't what they want. You make money on a game by making it popular and retaining customers. Prices are secondary, but still important.

On that basis I think Legion can be declared a failure. It brought people back initially but I bet they lost close to 50% of the players who were there for launch over the course of the expansion yet again. Now, losing people after launch is common, but losing them at the rate they have over WOD and Legion shows that the design choices are not popular long term. As much as fanbois want to claim that WOW is doing great financially, I think BFA looks like a low effort, maintenance mode type of investment aimed at squeezing a few more dollars out of the remaining player base. That's what happens why you make a large investment of resources for Legion (which I genuinely believe they did) and it doesn't pay off. I think WOD had multiple issues, but the biggest I believe was an incredibly underwhelming "selfie patch" that really pissed the playerbase off (in other words, a long content drought). This is a game millions of people pay monthly to play and that's the best Blizzard can do? Then at the same time they pick a huge fight over flying.

Prices are secondary, I agree... the most important factor in a game's popularity is gameplay that people enjoy. For a sub based model, I think it's also important that the enjoyment has "staying power" along with a steady stream of fresh content. MAUs may sound impressive on a quarterly earnings report, but how many people would honestly use that as a measuring stick for success? It becomes very disingenuous, in my mind, when you released the absolute, hands down, most grindy xpac the game has seen probably since Vanilla times (which I didn't even play because Vanilla wasn't even very good IMO) and then measure success by total number of hours played.

[Sorshen]

He's trying too hard to do PR and often failing at it.

[RoKPaNda]

The problem is that he actually cares about the game and takes the game in a direction that's good for the game overall even if that doesn't cater to a very vocal minority that I'm part of. (Mythic raiders.) Despite his Mythic raiding background. So he makes sure that we have content, but he's not going to fuck over everyone else every time we have a problem. (Which is why Titanforging is staying because it's good for the other 95% of players.) He'll make changes that aren't popular with this vocal minority, because those changes are good for the overall health of the game, which is propped up entirely be casuals, and us Mythic raiders will bitch and moan about it. We can be neglected a bit, we're not going anywhere, nothing offers PvE like WoW. Not even close.

It's about time that the devs put the casuals over us to keep the game healthy.

[ravenxii]

I like that Ion tries to fix root issues of player feedback instead of patching things like adding more damage, nerfing something, or giving more free stuff. Curing the sickness instead of prescribing temporary medicine.

[Rogalicus]

As a fellow tablet gamer I'm glad that he is trying to make WoW more accessible for people on touchscreens who can only use a limited number of abilities. I also think that too much choice is a bad thing so it's fantastic that he is making sure I'm having the right kind of fun.

Celestalon was a tablet gamer and he's gone from WoW team.

[vsb]

The fact that he's raid leader of a successful mythic guild everyone knows about, makes him quite an appropriate person to lead game development. He knows the game well! While I think that there were few huge mistakes in game design (OP items like legendaries and racanocrystal, stupid grind like early AP grind with thousands of MoW runs), he seems to be fixing them all in BfA, so I like him so far. Too bad that he did another mistake ruining PvP. It was awesome with template systems, I could jump into BG and not fearing getting roflstomped just becase I had lesser gear. But PvP is not really that important to me, I guess, I'll live with it.

[Deleted]

The problem is that he actually cares about The Soviet Union and takes the nation in a direction that's good for the people overall even if that doesn't cater to a very vocal minority that I'm part of. (The bourgoisie.) Despite his bourgeois background. So he makes sure that we have work, but he's not going to fuck over everyone else every time we have a problem. (Which is why collective farming is staying because it's good for the other 95% of the working class.) He'll make changes that aren't popular with this vocal minority, because those changes are good for the overall health of the nation, which is propped up entirely be workers, and us bourgoisie will bitch and moan about it. We can be neglected a bit, we're not going anywhere, nothing offers joy of work like The Soviet Union. Not even close.

It's about time that the Party put the working class over us to keep the nation healthy.

I am so, so sorry. No offense to you intended. It was just too juicy of a text to not edit it a little.

[vsb]

I guess it is with Game Director's as it is with artists, when they are active, no one really likes them, but when they are retired they suddenly become famous for what no one liked when they where active :-) Like Ghostcrawler or Picasso :-)

I don't know who's Picasso, but I never liked Ghostcrawler and don't think that he made good decisions (or whoever made them). For me WoW was going downhill since wotlk with few comebacks quickly reverted (like awesome dungeon experience in early Cata).

[LexiSwe]

He thinks World Quests are unique. I call them forced daily quests

[Bigbazz]

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?

These are all traits of his personality you are judging, his personality doesn't do his job for him. You should judge someones ability to do their job on their actions, not on their words and intentions.

[Carnedge]

I like him. WoW doesn’t deserve him imo

[Varitok]

Hes not perfect, but hes doing way better than any other game director at actually communicating with the community a little bit

Which is nice

That is just patently false, You clearly weren't around when GC was, He was constantly posting and was even a very early user of twitter when it came blizzard devs.

Ion is the downfall of WoW. He has slowed the game to a crawl, taken away features for no real reason other than slowdown, He uses his lawyer speak so well as to never truly answer a question that is hard. The fact that so many people like him is just astounding. He has done nothing for this game to make it good. He bows to the activision overlords and doesn't have a spine to push for more freedom of design, instead its time for SLOWDOWNS so we can sell them boosts! Truly a man of integrity. Bring back Kaplan.

[epLe]

Such a thread... he is the best cos he got the job for the best game to direct, after many years playing it as Gurgthock GM of <Elitist Jerks>.

But he is indeed intelligent, and very political and elusive in what he answers and not.

He rarely gives any unbiased views, and will never justify any changes from a PvP perspective.

If you read up on what he used to express and promote, his personal change in attitude after taking on this job is a huge letdown.

[Jaewalk]

People are so salty and love to hate successful people like Ion. If the game still following vanilla class/raid design it would be trash and lose its #1mmo status.

[Razaron]

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?

The state that he's left dps shamans in is disgraceful.

[truulte]

Ion is 2nd best after Jeff Kaplan.

[Izzyfurious]

This thread is just hardcore asking for the vocal minority morons to appear.

Please, god no. OP, you will regret you made this thread...

[Metallourlante]

Well done, nice bait

[micwini]

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?

1: yes
2: Obviously no
3: Only when it suits him. When the questions get even slightly harder, he goes full avoid mode and talks about something else.
4: No, only when they are so severe as prepatch release. He still thinks 6.1, 7.2 and 7.3 were major patches.
5: Not really, it is more often than not Lore that is enabling him to say something funny.

TL;DR obvious troll post. Close please.