Ghost Crawler Gone, now the We = reversal

[Deleted]

he goes where the cash flows

[Sierra85]

There is an old idiom; and like rats abandoning a sinking ship.

Hopefully it is not true in this case, but you can never be too sure.

[Pancaspe]

Man you guys are so dorky.

Get this: RIOT paid Ghostcrawler a buttload of money because he is the BEST there is.

[zorkuus]

Maybe.. some day paladins can get rid of Holy Power and just use their MANA.

Holy power is a problem why? Making the class more simplistic is better?

[LeperHerring]

When subs continue to decline, and even faster, during/post WoD, you people can all start thinking "hmm maybe it wasn't GC that hurt WoW, but the age of the game or the million other factors that are ALL a part of the problem"

At this point the design decisions (heavily influenced by GC) made since WotLK have already done too much damage to reverse. I don't think there is anything to be done at this point than try to prolong the agonizing death of WoW while milking as much money as they can with microtransactions etc.

I'm sure GC tried his hardest and was passionate about what he did, unfortunately he just isn't a very good designer (he's a marine biologist by trade). He seemed focused on people "seeing the content" and seemed to have this extremely simplistic mental model of players in the game. His biggest fault is not understanding the immense complexity and importance of the social structure inside the game. It used to be a game where people made friends, and that was its main strength, not the content.

His design decisions almost universally destroyed the aspects that catalyzed communities and making friends inside the game, in order to get everyone to "see the content". LFD/LFR, 10/25 "equality", full reset every patch, etc. etc. All driven by the simplistic and naive reasoning along the lines of: "only X% of players have done this content, therefore we must come up with ways to push more players to do it". The result is that realm communities are decimated and nobody is making friends since you can essentially solo everything with LFR/LFD.

[Fortera]

*sigh*

Ghostcrawler deserves some flak as lead designer when things are received poorly by the community; such is the burden of being "lead". But he isn't the sole decision maker at Blizzard. He didn't direct everything. Not every change was his alone. As a senior software engineer myself I can attest: almost all decisions are made by the team. Almost all changes are discussed and fleshed out by the team.

Can we stop this, please? Can we stop heaping this crap on the guy?

But he's a pompous asshole who, on several occassions, responded to people with troll-like behavior and even bragged about his yacht. When you act like a douchebag, you attract negative attention.

[worstpvperus]

Making fights artificially last longer takes the fun out of PVP. Especially with the retarded health pools we have now.

Have you ever played above 1500. If they ever did this I would quit so fast. Hp doesn't mean anything if my incinerate is still hitting someone for 12% of there hp. Just because they scaled something down doesn't mean the damage will magically be more balanced.

[Normie]

It's possible that GC was everything that was wrong with WoW.

On the other hand, it's possible that GC will make LoL 2x as popular and profitable as it is now.

I'm rooting for 2x as popular and profitable, rather than "World of Whiners."

[loki504]

At this point the design decisions (heavily influenced by GC) made since WotLK have already done too much damage to reverse. I don't think there is anything to be done at this point than try to prolong the agonizing death of WoW while milking as much money as they can with microtransactions etc.

I'm sure GC tried his hardest and was passionate about what he did, unfortunately he just isn't a very good designer (he's a marine biologist by trade). He seemed focused on people "seeing the content" and seemed to have this extremely simplistic mental model of players in the game. His biggest fault is not understanding the immense complexity and importance of the social structure inside the game. It used to be a game where people made friends, and that was its main strength, not the content.

His design decisions almost universally destroyed the aspects that catalyzed communities and making friends inside the game, in order to get everyone to "see the content". LFD/LFR, 10/25 "equality", full reset every patch, etc. etc. All driven by the simplistic and naive reasoning along the lines of: "only X% of players have done this content, therefore we must come up with ways to push more players to do it". The result is that realm communities are decimated and nobody is making friends since you can essentially solo everything with LFR/LFD.

you really still think gc is the one to blame for WoW? lol its not that gc could wave his magic hands and the devs would follow by everyting he wants. its all teambased. and ofc the stockholders. and most likly the stockholders killed wow but gc certainly didn't kill wow the way it was in tbc/vanilla. and even then i don't want vanilla wow back.

- - - Updated - - -

It's possible that GC was everything that was wrong with WoW.

On the other hand, it's possible that GC will make LoL 2x as popular and profitable as it is now.

I'm rooting for 2x as popular and profitable, rather than "World of Whiners."

how can i man did everyting while it is clearly a team job

[MoanaLisa]

The push then was to ensure the system itself was successful and that means prioritizing solo queuing over grouping with friends.

I don't know about you but I've never queued up for Raid Finder solo. I always go with at least one friend and at least earlier in the expansion with many from my guild. Same with LFD. I can't remember the last time I queued up for a dungeon in the current expansion without having someone along. Just because you don't have to doesn't mean that you can't. Same with scenarios this expansion. I can't remember queuing up for one solo.

We'll never really know what decisions are made that would or would not have agreed with Street's wishes in the future. There will be lots of chatter about it but unless a Blizzard dev starts posting here and spills the beans it's very unlikely that Blizzard will say anything.

Really, if you want to blame someone for all of WoW's faults, perceived or otherwise, blame Pritchard Tom Chilton. He's the Game Director and was Street's boss.

Edit: Correcting a brain slip. I work with a guy named Tom Pritchard and that just slipped in there by mistake.

[Raiju]

I don't know about you but I've never queued up for Raid Finder solo. I always go with at least one friend and at least earlier in the expansion with many from my guild. Same with LFD. I can't remember the last time I queued up for a dungeon in the current expansion without having someone along. Just because you don't have to doesn't mean that you can't. Same with scenarios this expansion. I can't remember queuing up for one solo.

I queue with friends to avoid the plague of these options as much as possible, but it's true you get rewarded for queuing solo > as a group.

[Blackmist]

I don't know why people are celebrating that GC left.

Now you'll need to find a new scapegoat for why a 9 year old game somehow doesn't feel as fresh and fun as it used to...

[The Ogdru Jahad]

At this point the design decisions (heavily influenced by GC) made since WotLK have already done too much damage to reverse. I don't think there is anything to be done at this point than try to prolong the agonizing death of WoW while milking as much money as they can with microtransactions etc.

I'm sure GC tried his hardest and was passionate about what he did, unfortunately he just isn't a very good designer (he's a marine biologist by trade). He seemed focused on people "seeing the content" and seemed to have this extremely simplistic mental model of players in the game. His biggest fault is not understanding the immense complexity and importance of the social structure inside the game. It used to be a game where people made friends, and that was its main strength, not the content.

His design decisions almost universally destroyed the aspects that catalyzed communities and making friends inside the game, in order to get everyone to "see the content". LFD/LFR, 10/25 "equality", full reset every patch, etc. etc. All driven by the simplistic and naive reasoning along the lines of: "only X% of players have done this content, therefore we must come up with ways to push more players to do it". The result is that realm communities are decimated and nobody is making friends since you can essentially solo everything with LFR/LFD.

Wrong, he listened to the playerbase. People complained they wanted X changed for convenience and he gave them what they wanted. Now you're in the boat you're in.

[Cobaltius]

No he does not deserve it.

When you get hired to a gaming company and your first order of business is to take the games by far and away most favored and played class (Hunter) and turn it in to the least favored and played class overnight you doom your stay with the company. He reaped what he sowed.

[Slant]

*sigh*

Ghostcrawler deserves some flak as lead designer when things are received poorly by the community; such is the burden of being "lead". But he isn't the sole decision maker at Blizzard. He didn't direct everything. Not every change was his alone. As a senior software engineer myself I can attest: almost all decisions are made by the team. Almost all changes are discussed and fleshed out by the team.

Can we stop this, please? Can we stop heaping this crap on the guy?

Yes, but the team is meant to make mistakes, come up with stupid ideas and generally be creative. It's the leads task to step in and keep order to the chaos and reject idiocy. Clearly that doesn't work when you're an idiot yourself, I'm sure you can confirm that a stupid lead leads stupidly. Not you, but I'm sure you've seen idiots as leads before, since you're in the field. It's not just that he deserves some flak for what was his ideas, he deserves flak for basically anything that he wrote publically and was proven to be either BS or the stupidest idea ever implemented and for anything his team produced and turned out to be stupid. Suddenly "some flak" turns into "a ton of flak". He's been the lead. He's not just some codemonkey. And he also never shied away from the dubious internet fame. You can't take the glory and then reject the criticism just because you feel emotional today.

[Cosmic Janitor]

When you get hired to a gaming company and your first order of business is to take the games by far and away most favored and played class (Hunter) and turn it in to the least favored and played class overnight you doom your stay with the company. He reaped what he sowed.

The least favorite would be monk and rogue. You QQ on a very high level here, hunters are still among the most played classes.

[Salech]

Holy power is a problem why? Making the class more simplistic is better?

Holy power is just as simplistic.

[The Kao]

GC being away now might bring some change, but I personally doubt that it'll to the extend some here wish for. At least not for WoD. You have to see one thing, WoD has been in planning stage for probably about a year now so pretty much all impactful decisions have been made long ago (and under GC's direction I might add), are set in stone now and are merely being rolled out in the months to come. From a software developer's view the point of no return has been passed months ago. If what you're looking for is a major overhault of everything you don't like in the game today I wouldn't get my hopes up too high.

[Selah]

I just hope they do something different with the talent system. I'm getting tired quick of this current system.

[Whidbey]

Why do people think GC could do whatever he wanted? It has nothing to do with him at all. He was part of team with checks and balances and several bosses above him making the final decisions.