By the numbers Ion Hazzikostas is the worst game director in MMO history

[Linri]

I wonder if Ion will be overseeing Classic, or if it will be a unique team

[ashvirtually]

WoW is dead already. Blizzard admitted and sealed its death with the announcement of Classic.

It isn't even about how many people will actually play Classic. Since years WoW was a constant tug of war between those who loved the original game design and those that wanted this fast paced pruned action based gambling simulator. Of course, most people from the old days gave up and quit, but enough stayed that their voice was being heard. They stayed because they had nowhere to go. Now they do. Classic will pull out of retail every player that loves the game but hates the design. Finally having the content tailored for them these players will go silent. They won't even try anymore to stop changes happening to retail. They won't care.

And so the game will dive into bottomless pit of casualization. Milking the remaining playerbase that only wants to log in for 30 minutes and get the loot. Trying to compete against modern instant gratification games, while still being based on "outdated" design despite all the changes, and thus having no chance in this competition. Especially considering the subscription based model, WoW will soon become a museum of sorts, consisting partly of ancient veterans that just can't let go, and completely new players that curiously try the game for some time, and quit after few months at best for a new game that got their attention.

Yep. I am (or was) a grizzled vet, with the game since a few months before the launch of The Burning Crusade. My only time away from the game (before I quit) was because school - a year-long stint during Wrath of the Lich King (for which I am forever regretful, because I had a blast the last six months of that xpac, have always thought it was the best, and wish I had been able to experience the whole thing in its entirety).

For me, Mists of Pandaria was the game's swan song. The last of the old ideas and leadership giving us a story that was far deeper than it looked on its surface and an overall engrossing experience harkening back to the old days. I get that people are silly about Pandaren because Kung Fu Panda, but I think it's a better xpac than Cataclysm and the second best after Wrath. The overall quality of MoP compared to all the ones since is glaring and an indictment on the current game, the development team and (highly) likely Activision's garbage influence since their merger with Blizzard.

I gave up with WoD. That was the last straw. The bait and switch over flying, the bugs found in alpha and beta that were allowed to go live (and are still in the game to this day, BTW), the focus on the freaking garrisons, the feeling of deception and gaslighting, and a sense that the core direction of the game was changing permanently into something uncool, made me quit. I heard great things about Legion, but at that point, I was over my addiction, and there were principles involved.

But despite that and my misgivings about the development team (especially Ion and Watcher) that were never assuaged in following news about the game, I came back for Battle for Azeroth because LOLlore got to me. Only to find that the problems from WoD were exacerbated and, worse, the development was still doubling down when the community didn't like something and generally untrustworthy.

I'm playing FFXIV now and, despite initial balking at the art style, it's grown on me, and the amazingly deep crafting system sucked me in and has me working on a main. I'm honestly feeling about my toon the way I did about my main in WoW all those years ago as a baby nelf druid on Teldrassil, and I'm caring about Eorzea. I will probably come back for Classic, and if my interest lasts past the melancholy offered by my rose-tinted recollections, I may stay subbed. Encouragingly, Blizzard is making noises that if Classic is a success, it will be looking at TBC- and Wrath-locked servers in the future.

Give me a Classic-like Wrath server that starts at 3.0.9, and I'll never give a damn what happens to retail ever again in life.

[lockybalboa]

Why are fanboys here absolving of Ion of blame with regard to how the game has turn to shite? He is the lead and in charge of overall direction ffs. Class design has been horrendous this expac and he is responsible for not making sure that the design team is up to task. Not rocket science at all.

[Celista]

Why are fanboys here absolving of Ion of blame with regard to how the game has turn to shite? He is the lead and in charge of overall direction ffs. Class design has been horrendous this expac and he is responsible for not making sure that the design team is up to task. Not rocket science at all.

People keep complaining about class design but I'm not seeing elaboration on what that is. What does shitty class design mean to you? What is shit about it?

[Gaexion Ramza Beoulve]

Thank you Hazzikostas-chan for eternally decimating HEs!

TAKE MY ENERGY!

[Vilendor]

Here is the thing: I don't like him, i don't like his direction, i don't like what he did with the game. But at this point i highly doubt there is anyone left at Actizzard who could do better than him. And that's not a praise, it means everyone left (the WoW team) who did his job from real passion, who was a real gamer. Now the company is bloated with soulless droids working for their monthly paycheck not giving a shit. Half the Vanilla game was made by people who coded systems/mechanics/ideas in their free time just to show them their boss and get it approved to be added to the game (im not promoting unpaid overtime, im pointing out they made it willingly because they wanted their ideas to be in the game) Now everyone does the bare minimum they can

[Soon-TM]

I admire that he went in front of the firing squad and answered questions for a full half hour. His heart is in the right place, but I don’t think he has the rpg chops to save wow.

He would need the courage first to blow it up to the very foundations and rebuild it up again in classic or tbc image. One size fits all wow doesn’t fit anyone but the very tip top and the bottom of the barrel

Haha well said. It reminds me of that episode from The Simpsons where a formal outfit becomes mandatory for schoolkids, then we see Principal Skinner saying "there are only two sizes, extra small and extra large".

WoW these days is in a similar predicament.

[Armakus]

I'm sure that the fax machine companies last CEO were also the worst ones in their history, based on the drop in sales.

This. OP clearly has no idea what he's talking about.

Not that I love Ion or anything, but this has to be one of the dumbest ways to judge his success/failure yet.

[Quaade]

He is total trash when it come to game design and so is most of his team. Not only he pushes the most retarded and cancerous design known to man in a mmo but he proceeds to come in public and sneer in your face like a big fuck you to everyone who used to enjoy the game. He knows retail is now just a sad deserted farm land to scam stupid whale collectors and thats it.
People say hes out of touch with the community. He doesn't give a fuck about the community. He knows the game is a rotten carcass and his main task given by the Activision overlords is providing as much fake meaningless progression systems and extra toys sprinkled on top in the form of mounts/pets to farm the last suckers still on board.

The cause of those things is his arrogance.

[Puremallace]

Why are fanboys here absolving of Ion of blame with regard to how the game has turn to shite? He is the lead and in charge of overall direction ffs. Class design has been horrendous this expac and he is responsible for not making sure that the design team is up to task. Not rocket science at all.

Should of made this thread pointing out the obvious prior to 8.2 being announced because now he is not the pariah he deserves to be. When your game director gets up in your announcement video and spends 20 out of the 30 minutes explaining just how bad he has screwed up take it as a hint.

Our bad for crapping of class design, content design and rpg elements of the game for the last 5 years. My bad.

We will see in 9.0 if he has learned anything or if he is just trying to put out a fire he started.

BTW I also refuse to throw the rest of the team under the bus having worked in hierarchies similar to this where game director is basically jesus when it comes to the power they have. They set the direction and makes the very big game changing decisions. No dev sneaks some changes into the live game.

If you really want to get me started. WTF the Lore do and why does he have a job? I have seen some shitty CM's in my MMO career but this guy takes the cake on not knowing how to do his job.

Why the fuck is the game director communicating everything and not the COMMUNITY MANAGER?

[MidnyteTV]

I'm very late to this thread. But here goes nothing.

WoW has had only 3 game directors that I can think of.

Rob Pardo

Tom Chilton

Ion

With special mentions to Lead Game Designers Jeff Kaplan and Greg Street, as well as J. Allen Brack as the Executive Producer.

Out of the 6 of these people, I would say Ion has made more decisions that have harmed the game both in macro and micro ways. While I felt Legion was the best expansion since Wrath, which is under Ion's directive, he continues to made bad decisions when he shouldn't.

I would say the best person to lead WoW right now would be Greg Street. Mostly because he focused on changing things that weren't fun, as opposed to Ion who changes things and comes up with his own reasoning as to why you shouldn't do certain things.

Allowing the GM of Elitist Jerks to run your game has clearly been a bad decision.

[Lazuli]

Ion is the worst game director in history... according to some numbers I just pulled out of the air with nothing to support them.

Why doesn't Blizz boast their 10 mill subs anymore then? Oh right.. because they are hovering at a couple mill AT BEST lol don't delude yourself into thinking any different. They always loved posting their insane sub numbers. Now that the game 'died' they keep it on the hush. Can't blame them, really. It wouldn't exactly be strong PR to post current sub numbers that we all know are low asfuck compared to any other point in the games history aside from launch.

There's a reason why everything is now sharded with their laggy ass cancer tech, zones would be literal dead otherwise, and they still are pretty damn dead if you don't see a zerg then you don't see anyone really. WoW may be big but that is no excuse for how dead the zones are because the only relevant content in this game is CURRENT content and there is no one there unless you are making/joining a shard for a world quest or zerg pvp.

Everything else attached to a queue, keeps the illusion that this game still has players, but it is not a lot by any means especially compared to the ever rising numbers in the other big 3 once players realize how bad Bli$$ is fucking their playerbase in the anus sans lube.

It is time for it to die purely out of ignorance of its developers, but again I can't blame them either because none are even the original or have any passion whatsoever nor do they even play the game obviously or it would be fun so.. GG b team!

[Shaetha]

In MMO history? I think you're overshooting and if you don't believe you are, then you are blind to the many other MMO's that are no more.

I'd say that any answer that isn't Firefall is the wrong one. That game failed because of bad leadership more than any other game ever made.

[Soon-TM]

Actually, to be fair? It is a damn good game if you look at it objectively.

Has great art, music, storyline, the gameplay itself is engaging, the end content is good, as is all the other stuff.

The only issue is, it isn't a random game. It is WoW. Had it been any other MMO release or such, it would be heralded by the fanbase, but it just doesn't suit the actual game that is WoW in what the players want.

But it isn't a bad game, to think so is just asinine.

BfA is a lot like D3. Had it been made by a brand new company, it would have tanked immediately. But it was made by Blizzard, which has some of the most loyal fans in the entire gaming world thanks to past glories, so they could get away with it.

[Lazuli]

I'd say that any answer that isn't Firefall is the wrong one. That game failed because of bad leadership more than any other game ever made.

What about wildstar? The ignorance of that dev team was mind blowing, they just refused to assimilate any player requests and rode that 'hardcore' dick until it died a pathetic death. It is the polar opposite of what Blizz is doing (making everything 100% braindead rng with 0 rpg elements) but very similar at the same time.

BfA is a lot like D3. Had it been made by a brand new company, it would have tanked immediately. But it was made by Blizzard, which has some of the most loyal fans in the entire gaming world thanks to past glories, so they could get away with it.

QFT

[seleri]

Ion's my favorite, to be honest. Gregg was pretty close though.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Should of made this thread pointing out the obvious prior to 8.2 being announced because now he is not the pariah he deserves to be. When your game director gets up in your announcement video and spends 20 out of the 30 minutes explaining just how bad he has screwed up take it as a hint.

Our bad for crapping of class design, content design and rpg elements of the game for the last 5 years. My bad.

We will see in 9.0 if he has learned anything or if he is just trying to put out a fire he started.

BTW I also refuse to throw the rest of the team under the bus having worked in hierarchies similar to this where game director is basically jesus when it comes to the power they have. They set the direction and makes the very big game changing decisions. No dev sneaks some changes into the live game.

If you really want to get me started. WTF the Lore do and why does he have a job? I have seen some shitty CM's in my MMO career but this guy takes the cake on not knowing how to do his job.

Why the fuck is the game director communicating everything and not the COMMUNITY MANAGER?

It wouldn’t have mattered when you made the thread as your facts are way off the mark As have been pointed out time and time again.

[rrayy]

I'm very late to this thread. But here goes nothing.

WoW has had only 3 game directors that I can think of.

Rob Pardo

Tom Chilton

Ion

With special mentions to Lead Game Designers Jeff Kaplan and Greg Street, as well as J. Allen Brack as the Executive Producer.

Out of the 6 of these people, I would say Ion has made more decisions that have harmed the game both in macro and micro ways. While I felt Legion was the best expansion since Wrath, which is under Ion's directive, he continues to made bad decisions when he shouldn't.

I would say the best person to lead WoW right now would be Greg Street. Mostly because he focused on changing things that weren't fun, as opposed to Ion who changes things and comes up with his own reasoning as to why you shouldn't do certain things.

Allowing the GM of Elitist Jerks to run your game has clearly been a bad decision.

To sum this up you are basically saying:

Greg Street is the best because hje made decisions I liked

Ion is the worst because he made decisions I hated.

I cannot take an argument seriously that one is the best siomply because you liked the decisions they made. Talk about complete bias.

[Donald Hellscream]

Should of made this thread pointing out the obvious prior to 8.2 being announced because now he is not the pariah he deserves to be. When your game director gets up in your announcement video and spends 20 out of the 30 minutes explaining just how bad he has screwed up take it as a hint.

Our bad for crapping of class design, content design and rpg elements of the game for the last 5 years. My bad.

We will see in 9.0 if he has learned anything or if he is just trying to put out a fire he started.

BTW I also refuse to throw the rest of the team under the bus having worked in hierarchies similar to this where game director is basically jesus when it comes to the power they have. They set the direction and makes the very big game changing decisions. No dev sneaks some changes into the live game.

If you really want to get me started. WTF the Lore do and why does he have a job? I have seen some shitty CM's in my MMO career but this guy takes the cake on not knowing how to do his job.

Why the fuck is the game director communicating everything and not the COMMUNITY MANAGER?

Even if you made thread prior to the 8.2 video, your thread would still be the same since your supposition is based off of something that didn't happen. Your supposition that he took power in 2013, which he didn't, is wrong regardless of the timing of the thread.

[rrayy]

Why doesn't Blizz boast their 10 mill subs anymore then? Oh right.. because they are hovering at a couple mill AT BEST lol don't delude yourself into thinking any different. They always loved posting their insane sub numbers. Now that the game 'died' they keep it on the hush. Can't blame them, really. It wouldn't exactly be strong PR to post current sub numbers that we all know are low asfuck compared to any other point in the games history aside from launch.

Prove it. They don't report subs because it ceased being the sole indicator of game health. They have other metrics that give a more detailed analysis.

Your post is nothing more than "I am right, anyone who disagrees with me is wrong" . So again , prove it.