Dear Ghostcrawler - YOU Are The Problem

[wdh1974]

MMOC is the world host for rabies, good luck with your post, tho i agree with what you've said.

[Wildtree]

OP I agree with your post 110%! It's about time someone else said it. However GC never did know wtf he was going. He's a freaking Marine Biologist turned gamer. Sure he worked on a few PC games..... That still doesn't make him a good fit for the position. While it's not only his fault.... Focusing a MMO game on casuals.....the people most likely to leave and never return. It's never worked and it's never going too. You focus on the players really playing the game and focusing on adding more new players like them.

Instead we now have World of Derpcraft.

World of Derpcraft is what I call your and the OP's opening post.
Why? Go ahead and deliver hard proof of what in the game is GC's direct responsibility and decision. And as long as you cannot provide that, all you do is accusing without anything to back it up.
Your knowledge of business structure of a company the size of Blizzard is actually amazingly non existent.

If you guys had any clue whatsoever, you'd criticize these men:
Michael Morhaime (president and co-founder)
Frank Pearce (vice president and co-founder)
Rob Pardo (Chief Creative Officer)
Chris Metzen (senior vice president of Story and Franchise Development)

THOSE are the guys who make the key decisions. They are the ones who really have the say about what's going on and what not. GC is a small figure.. He's a step or two above a supervisor.

[Mawnix]

OP I agree with your post 110%! It's about time someone else said it. However GC never did know wtf he was doing. He's a freaking Marine Biologist turned game designer..... Sure he worked on a few PC games..... That still doesn't make him a good fit for the position. While it's not only his fault.... Focusing a MMO game on casuals.....the people most likely to leave and never return. It's never worked and it's never going too. You focus on the players really playing the game and focusing on adding more new players like them.

Instead we now have World of Derpcraft.

Back in BC you didn't have LFR or LFD. Sure it took some time to find groups and guilds. However it was a journey and you made friends along the way. You had guilds progressing threw all different stages of the game. Everyone had a place. You got what you earned and you had fun at it. I'm still with the same 30 people I played with back in BC. I promise they will all agree.

I want WoW set back to BC standards. Keep the pet battles. Hell even keep LFD ( However make them find and complete the instance. Before ever being aloud to queue up for it.) Get rid of CRZ, LRF, and be done with it. Sure some people will leave. However you'll be left with a good strong player base to rebuild off of.

You realize the developers who made the game it was in BC are the same as now, right?

You guys need to understand something: the game was never supposed to last this long and have this many players.

Because of that, the game had to evolve to CURRENT MARKET standards.

But I know you'll just respond to my post saying how I'm wrong and yada yada.

That's what you get when you try reason with a brick wall unfortunately.

[Forgettable]

So you're complaining, and not actually coming up with any ideas on how to make the game better?

[Sansnom]

I want WoW set back to BC standards. Keep the pet battles. Hell even keep LFD ( However make them find and complete the instance. Before ever being aloud to queue up for it.) Get rid of CRZ, LRF, and be done with it. Sure some people will leave. However you'll be left with a good strong player base to rebuild off of.

Really? Really? You know what might happen with this LFD change you are proposing? People will just run the dungeon just once with friends or quildmates and then hit LFD. The people who comes much much later in the game will be stuck because there will be less people to group with because more and more are in LFD already. These people will probably never do the dungeons because there will be less people available to queue with. So they are stuck.

And if you need to recruit people, well, there are now less geared people in the recruitment pool. So back to BC's style of poaching from other guilds. But then you do want to return to this.

And you think GC does not know what his doing.

[usiris]

Although I do agre with you on many parts OP, I do not blame Greg for the decisions that have been made for this game. Greg just voices what is going to happen and explains why, but he does not make these up, I doubt every single idea comes from him. I rather point towards Blizzard as a whole than towards one man.

To say it is Activision is also a tad different. I think though it has something to do with that for this reason more. When Blizzard was with Vivendi, WoW was more known among players who have heard or played Warcraft before or any other kind of Blizzard game, most usually the North Americans. This is also where the game was released the first time and was more known. There was barely to no advertisement in Europe, at least not in my parts. But before WotLK was released, when Blizzard decided to cut off with Vivendi and go with Activision, there were huge advertisements and commercials, even on national TV, they appaered, announcing the new expansion.

This attracted a bucketload of new people who suddenly saw it as a commercial and with those, they voice their opinions as well. I think this is what changed and why the game has gone into this state more specifically.

My thoughts though, if I'm wrong, shoot me. Note that I had no idea if there was any advertisement for WoW of Vanilla and TBC in (North) America.

Blizz is still with Vivendi; Viv bought Activision and merged them(blizz and act), end of story.

[ringpriest]

Could any of us of done better? Sure I like to think I could of, but could we REALLY of done better? And also is this thread really going to solve anything? I just don't know if it's constructive. Criticism I'm all for giving, but the Thread Title feels empathically more like a rant post. :\

Yes. We could have done better. Just look at the quote from him in my sig. Anyone who can say that after making the changes he is responsible for to specs, talents, and glyphs is not qualified to have significant input into the direction of a major game franchise. He's either lying to his customers, or clueless about how the game he's administering works.

[Conscious]

Blizz is still with Vivendi; Viv bought Activision and merged them(blizz and act), end of story.

...And if currently looking to sell them off.

[Deleted]

I think this hits all the usual points, right?

* Saying 10/25 should be separate again
* LFG/LFR sucks
* Cata heroics were good because they were "hard" like TBC
* MoP heroics are awful because they're "too easy"
* Dailies are terrible (okay I agree with this one)
* Use of "Activi$ion" as derogatory
* Ghostcrawler is terrible and should be fired

Sounds like every other "I don't like the game but think its my right to complain about things that the majority like" post. Nothing to see here.

What's your point? MoP Heroics ARE too easy. I don't think anyone would disagree with that. They are also, for the majority, pointless.

[Adoxe]

All I hear is QQ, QQ, QQ and more QQ. Deal with it, they're the designers, they will do what they feel like doing. The game has 8+ million subs still and as long as it stays above 1.5-3mil subs they will keep doing the same thing they're doing. Ghostcrawler is not the one responsible for every single department btw so please stop blaming him for everything.

[Coolascancer]

i agree with a lot of what you said, but the reason is because you and i aren't the target audience for wow anymore, havent been since wrath. although i don't think you can lay the blame at GC's feet, at least not by what he says on twitter. he is in public view and is censored no doubt.

[Zoneseek]

I agree with many of your points especially the valor cap, why does it exist? Who knows...let the keeners go nuts and finish their valor grind in 3 weeks if they want to, who cares!

With that said ill reply to 2 things I cannot agree with:

I don't know if people realize this or not, but this game used to be considered a MMORPG. A "Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game", now it's a OLCG (Online Loot Collecting Game). He's taken away the feeling of massive by making travel nearly instant for anywhere you want to go, and he's taken away the term multiplayer by putting in so much solo crap and less dependent on other players that you can literally play your character and obtain BiS LFR gear without every speaking to another person in the game. The only exception: You might need some help on Change of Command. Maybe a tank has solo'd it before, but I don't know.

The first mainstream MMORPG had instant travel for anywhere you want to go, REAL instant travel, not just sort of instant travel like wow has. If I want to go to the harpy spawn in the north east corner of barrens what are my instant travel options? There are none. Instant travel doesn't hurt games. Long travel is a boring, horrible time sink that nobody has ever wanted in video games before. It was a failed idea that so many of the first "3d" mmorpgs adopted and we are seeing it go out the window. Thank god. You know what makes a good community and MMO feel? Having good meeting locations, places players want to go to meet up, trade, chat, etc. Having places people want to go to pvp, want to go to pve, want to go to play in a massively multiplayer environment. Tell me exactly how sitting on a wyvern alt tabbed looking at reddit for 5 minutes betters a games community or MMORPG feel? Tell me exactly how autorunning through the forest getting to where you want, occasionally being annoyed by some mob 1/10th your level knocking you off your horse betters a games community or MMORPG feel? They don't, they're just time sinks. Horribly boring ones at that, and I hope to never have to take another flight path on my main again.

Nerfing Cataclysm Heroics: Why? People had to put CC back on their Action Bars and people actually had to not stand in fire or they would die? I absolutely loved Cataclysm Heroics because they required the use of SIMPLE, I mean MIND NUMBINGLY SIMPLE techniques to kill trash and bosses. People would have gotten over it and once they outgeared it, it would've gotten incredibly easier. Instead, you nerfed it from the get go and turned them into a joke.

I find most people who still have a big crew playing this game feel this way, while someone like me feels the opposite. Everyone I know from vanilla has quit, with the exception of (currently) 2 players. All 3 of us are now super casual and the odds we'll be on at the same time are low. So that's my pool. I have no interest in joining a serious guild because I don't raid or competitively pvp, and sometimes I simply don't log on for days or weeks at a time if I have other interests that are heavily outweighing wow.

What im getting at is the VAST majority of the time I am using LFD. LFD in early cataclysm played a big role in my quitting for upwards of a year. I played for about 2 months before hanging my hat until 4.3. What was one of the main pain points? Queueing up for a heroic to gain a bit of valor, and having to deal with the other 4 players in the instance not knowing the fights. Wiping constantly. Going afk constantly when the content at the start of cat, when everyone was in green quest gear, was tough and it wasn't easy to do with 4 players. I wasn't the one standing in fire. I wasn't the one that didn't know the fights. I wasn't the one with zero enchants or gems or blue rep gear. But I WAS the one who had to deal with all that bullshit, and spend 90 minutes clearing a heroic with multiple wipes, for what...a piece of blue gear and a bit of valor? No thanks. Not gonna happen. And it didn't. 4.3 heroics were much improved, in my humble opinion.

[Deleted]

The point of making individual loot in LFR wasn't to encourage afk-ing, it was implemented to eliminate loot going to the wrong hands, like, for example, people who went afk (which they did just the same before as they do now). And it works.

Agree with too many gate/capping restrictions at the start of the expansion, though they are still experimenting stuff.

Blaming GC for talking sense, or at least having the patience to deal with people who are blind to the fact that wow will never please everyone - is not a good idea, imo.

[Conscious]

The point of making individual loot in LFR wasn't to encourage afk-ing, it was implemented to eliminate loot going to the wrong hands, like, for example, people who went afk (which they did just the same before as they do now). And it works.

Agree with too many gate/capping restrictions at the start of the expansion, though they are still experimenting stuff.

Blaming GC for talking sense, or at least having the patience to deal with people who are blind to the fact that wow will never please everyone - is not a good idea, imo.

What most people can't explain is why, for the sake of the game, do they keep pushing things that the community just doesn't receive well?

They had plenty of chances to right the ship at the beginning of the expansion, when it came to the grief from dailies, reputation, etc. - But for some reason they just didn't, as if to spite us. If that's the game they want to play, then fine, by all means - it's not my game to design right?

I love how irritated and shocked they seem to act when quarter after quarter has yielded nothing but losses, when in fact if they would just tone down the arrogance in their design philosophy, they would have more success with how the playerbase, and former playerbase, receives their game.

On the upside it's not like it could get any worse?

[Deleted]

I have to agree, that the mop Heroics are a joke. I would really like to see them beeing heroic, and not what we had in mop so far. I really hate the way you bullrush through the heroics, its a brainless run (not the players the requirement). I was really hoping that we get good heroics in cata, but then, there where the nerfs, and there was no need to cc and concentrate really hard.
I agree, there should be something to do for the people that have not that much time. LFr, LFG normals and normal szenarios should be good enough. But people who want to play a bit more, and have a little challenge should not be able to rush through a heroic. I am not saying there should be hours of trash. But there should be cc and If a damage dealers pulls instead of the tank or gets aggro he should die as a result. Standing in the fire too long should also result in death.

I like the aproach to scale down the gear in challenge mode, that should be done in heroics. (I am not a fun of blind rush through, not my way of playing, and sadly havent enough expirience in challenge mode) The scaling seen in guild wars is great, i would love to see that in every zone. (put together the questsystem of wow and gw2, would be great imo)

Cross realm zones are a great idea, we can see it in guild wars 2. But the big difference is, you cant mob steal, or steal nodes. everyone gets credit if he hit a mob. Bosses even give you credit for your part in it. So if you just get there and hit one time, you just get a small reward. if you are there and heal your ass off, you get a gold reward. you are actually happy when there is a nother player in your quest area. you autamatically run around together (there is no need for a group, since buffs work like auras, if you are in range my buffs work for you) The way it is now in wow, you hate it when there is another player.
Look at the barrens, you fight next to a box, and another player comes around and takes it. of course you did not own that box, but you know what i mean, that sucks. I live with it, but in guild wars, more players would help you kill the mob and then loot the box together with you. Make us play together, not against each other (faction wise, I dont wanna share with an alliance player, but I wanna play togheter with my Horde"

And I dont know, why they havent tried or thought of scaling us down and let us lfg normal and heroic in every dungeon there is besides the techproblem. If you can scale down the player or scale up the dungeon, we could run EVERY dungeon in the game. There would not be a becoming tired of a dungeon every day, because there a lot of them. Also, we have seen that in guild wars 2.
Other games show good approaches, you just have to take that example and use it in wow. (transmog says hello)

[Axon14]

I'm good with a time sink being easy. And concern over heroic dungeons is pointless. No matter what, that content gets antiquated so quickly that you really can't worry about it.

[moremana]

You know, for the longest time, I always thought Activi$ion was the poison of this game that was decreasing the quality (in my opinion... calm down and put down the flame throwers.)

Now.. while Activi$$$$ion is still a money sucking bottom less pit of greed, I don't think that's half the problem for World of Warcraft at all. I never used to be someone who read all of Ghostcrawler's tweets but since MoP I've been paying attention to them. He basically only has two kinds of tweets...........

Wow, I couldnt have said it better myself!

Fire GC and bring back our WoW!! Yes I said it, LFR, LFD and welfare epics ruined this game.

[Frolk]

Wow, I couldnt have said it better myself!

Fire GC and bring back our WoW!! Yes I said it, LFR, LFD and welfare epics ruined this game.

Others people in LFR epics ruining your normal/HC epics, makes u feel "less" epic?
Do u miss being in general chat for 45min "LF tank daily HC!" I know i dont

[Deleted]

All I hear is QQ, QQ, QQ and more QQ. Deal with it, they're the designers, they will do what they feel like doing. The game has 8+ million subs still and as long as it stays above 1.5-3mil subs they will keep doing the same thing they're doing. Ghostcrawler is not the one responsible for every single department btw so please stop blaming him for everything.

ok so if you walked into a mcdonalds or whatever and the cook gave u anything he wanted you would be happy with that seriously please shut up, designers cant design what they feel like they have to please there customers otherwise they would all be out of a job cos no customers = no money

---------- Post added 2013-05-28 at 12:38 AM ----------

aslong as ghostcrawler is at blizzard wow will never get better, all you have to do is read some of his tweets and you can easily see what a moron he is, hes like the homer simpson of wow just showed up the day they opened the place and gave him a job

[CrusaderNerò87]

I like the idea of downscaling for older dungeons, would never grow tierd of dungeons then when there is so many of them in wow! Either downscale our hp/dps/healing output or put all dungeons at max lvl equal health pools as other new hc dungeons.

I believe that in next xpac we will see that nodes and mobs will all be shared kills, atleast if same faction tags it. We already see that they do this for rares and that is a great success. Would be weird if they did not implement this. I would like if it was faction based though, you need someone from same faction attacking it for you to also get credit.