I Miss Celestalon

[mario710]

With all the stealth changes lately and the lack of transparency about the direction of the game and classes does anyone find themselves wishing he was still around? I know he made a ton of controversial decisions but I do miss the communication between him and the community and maybe most importantly the rationale behind the changes that were made.

[Unlimited Power]

Stealth changes? What stealth changes? There's practically hotfix patch notes on the daily.

As for your question, I certainly don't miss Celestalon. He was frequently pretty toxic.

And what "controversial decisions" did Celestalon supposedly make? He was a community manager, not a decision maker of any sort.

I miss Ghostcrawler because he was a decision maker openly communicating with the player base. Unfortunately he got muzzled after his post about how people should "git gud" to do heroic dungeons in Cataclysm.

[MoanaLisa]

And what "controversial decisions" did Celestalon supposedly make? He was a community manager, not a decision maker of any sort.

This is just flat-out wrong. He was a Technical Class/Systems designer for some years. He didn't communicate a lot with players except during betas for expansions when he would run a long and highly math-based thread describing the theory-crafting for class design.

I'm not going to comment on his work per se but he was not in any way a community manager. He did make many decisions about the fundamental math behind class design during his time at Blizzard.

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Chadd_Nervig

Chadd Nervig, also known as Celestalon,[1] was a Technical Class/Systems Designer for World of Warcraft.[2] He was the designer of the Endless Halls,[3] and played an important part in the design of artifact weapons. He was also involved in design work on Hearthstone.

[Zephire]

Stealth changes I assume are hidden changes to the game, not to the stealth mechanic that rogues and druids use, right? :P I was so curious about this, thinking they changed rogues and druids... Damn it!

Don't have an opinion on Celestalon but I do miss Ghostcrawler. Gonna be epic to get information from him for the MMO Riot Games are working on. Great guy. Great insights. No PR-bullshit.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

This is just flat-out wrong. He was a Technical Class/Systems designer for some years. He didn't communicate a lot with players except during betas for expansions when he would run a long and highly math-based thread describing the theory-crafting for class design.

I'm not going to comment on his work per se but he was not in any way a community manager. He did make many decisions about the fundamental math behind class design during his time at Blizzard.

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Chadd_Nervig

Wasn't he the guy who wanted brewmaster monks to be designed around being at 50% health in Legion?

[MoanaLisa]

Wasn't he the guy who wanted brewmaster monks to be designed around being at 50% health in Legion?

No idea. I just wanted to correct the post that said he was a community manager and had nothing to do with decision-making.

There are tons of stories about Celestalon who suffered the fate of nearly any of the designers that even mildly talk with players. In addition to the things they say, valid ideas they discuss or when they talk about ideas that were rejected, stuff gets exaggerated, misunderstood, or shit just gets made up.

I never closely followed any of his threads and discussions on theory-crafting because math gives me headaches. He was very forthcoming about the math underlying classes though in his theory-crafting threads.

[Tantypops]

Isn't the dev who played WoW on a tablet? Also I remember him intentionally screwing Elemental Shamans back in the day. Not missed at all.

[Zka]

I miss the BC/early LK game design.

[Alkizon]

Isn't the dev who played WoW on a tablet?

yeap, he did, even couple of threads were on official forum, which ended with laughter on this theme.

[rrayy]

Stealth changes? What stealth changes? There's practically hotfix patch notes on the daily.

As for your question, I certainly don't miss Celestalon. He was frequently pretty toxic.

And what "controversial decisions" did Celestalon supposedly make? He was a community manager, not a decision maker of any sort.

I miss Ghostcrawler because he was a decision maker openly communicating with the player base. Unfortunately he got muzzled after his post about how people should "git gud" to do heroic dungeons in Cataclysm.

He didn't get muzzled. He left the company. Also, toxic players ran him off.

[Soon-TM]

With all the stealth changes lately and the lack of transparency about the direction of the game and classes does anyone find themselves wishing he was still around? I know he made a ton of controversial decisions but I do miss the communication between him and the community and maybe most importantly the rationale behind the changes that were made.

I certainly don't miss him or his toxicity, I still remember how he lectured the best Monk players in the world, sometime during the WoD beta, about how they "were doing it wrong", and basically told them to GitGud™. Which was also the one pitfall for his predecessor (sort of) GC, but at least GC was open about his views and communicated often with the community.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I miss the BC/early LK game design.

BC didn't have some specs even viable, Wrath only was the start.

[exsanguinate]

Stealth changes? What stealth changes? There's practically hotfix patch notes on the daily.

It's pretty naive to think that they won't change anything in their system without us knowing, despite public hotfixes.

[Kralljin]

BC didn't have some specs even viable, Wrath only was the start.

Every Hybrid dps spec was certainly viable in TBC.

If you're referring to dps specs in general, that opens another can of worms, Frost (Mage) was hardly a viable spec during Wotlk either, especially as the expansion went on it just got totally outclassed by Arcane & Fire, BM suffered a similiar fate.

The introduction of the "Bring the player, not the class" philosophy was really a double edged sword, because suddenly every dps spec must pull decent numbers in order to be considered viable, whereas in TBC, you could still get away with subpar dps if your spec brought some solid buff (which most specs did).

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Every Hybrid dps spec was certainly viable in TBC.

If you're referring to dps specs in general, that opens another can of worms, Frost (Mage) was hardly a viable spec during Wotlk, especially as the expansion went on it just got totally outclassed by Arcane & Fire, BM suffered a similiar fate.

The introduction of the "Bring the player, not the class" philosophy was really a double edged sword, because suddenly every dps spec must pull decent numbers in order to be considered viable, whereas in TBC, you could still get away with subpar dps if your spec brought some solid buff (which most specs did).

Well yes doing decent numbers every spec should be able to do, thats my point. Its only when Wrath came around its started to really get there, close to the finish line but not completely there yet. As for Celestalon, I don't really have anything against him other then the possible claim of wow on tablet but I can't take just the words of just a wow player.

[Unlimited Power]

He didn't get muzzled. He left the company. Also, toxic players ran him off.

Ghostcrawler used to communicate with players fairly frequently prior to posting the "Developer Watercooler: Dungeons are hard!".

Players didn't respond well to it, and Ghostcrawler posted significantly less frequently following it. He was still the lead system designer of WoW until sometime during MoP or WoD though. I doubt it was his own decision to communicate less given he has always been a proponent of transparent communication.

[Kralljin]

Well yes doing decent numbers every spec should be able to do, thats my point.

Pretty biased definition of "viable", considering how the TBC Meta is shaped by unique buffs and not just dps.

Its only when Wrath came around its started to really get there, close to the finish line but not completely there yet.

Most specs have been viable due to some unique buffs in TBC already, it's really more of a zero sum gain in comparison, especially when we also take into account how some specs have started to struggle under this philosophy, because they still lacked the numbers and now unique support tools.

[rrayy]

Ghostcrawler used to communicate with players fairly frequently prior to posting the "Developer Watercooler: Dungeons are hard!".

Players didn't respond well to it, and Ghostcrawler posted significantly less frequently following it. He was still the lead system designer of WoW until sometime during MoP or WoD though. I doubt it was his own decision to communicate less given he has always been a proponent of transparent communication.

Players were being toxic., It is very easy to believe one would stop communicating if the players are going to behave that way. He can be a fan of transparent communication and still come to the realization that it isn't worth iti player are going to behave like children.

[Sorshen]

Lol.
He was one of the worst. See the secret feedback/theorycrafting forums fiasco.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Pretty biased definition of "viable", considering how the TBC Meta is shaped by unique buffs and not just dps.

Not really biased, if you weren't viable for endgame or even doing good enough for your specific role, you weren't really considered viable. It was a failing on Blizzard's part.

Most specs have been viable due to some unique buffs in TBC already, it's really more of a zero sum gain in comparison, especially when we also take into account how some specs have started to struggle under this philosophy, because they still lacked the numbers and now unique support tools.

I think thats more related to systems then somehow bring the player hampering things(You'd have all the abilities and whatever equiv conduits are) but depending on the spec you probably weren't going to do well. Certainly an improvement from vanilla wow(TBC that is) but it wasn't enough.