Why ion hazzikostas is the best Game Director

[Hawkknight97]

Don't you mean the worst Game Director who doesn't give a shit about the playerbase and also his Q&As are boring unexciting time wasters.

[Stened91]

Don't you mean the worst Game Director who doesn't give a shit about the playerbase and also his Q&As are boring unexciting time wasters.

How can i argue or discuss it when you have no arguments?

[Tic Tacs]

Makes no sense what so ever..

Ion Hazzikostas was one of the Lead Game Designers of WoD, does that make sense?

[Deleted]

Ion seems like a decent person aswell as a decent Game Director, but please give him better questions in a Q&A. The last Q&A was mostly about t-mog and there are way more interesting questions to ask..

[FelPlague]

Lovely comments indeed. :/

Have people ever not bitched about a game-director? (Not just in World of Warcraft, but in general...)

people have not ever bitched about anyone.
Ghost cralwer is ruining the game
Mike is ruining the game
Celestalon is ruining the game
Chris is ruining the game
Ion is ruinign the game
Goldie is ruining the game
etc

[Kelimbror]

Ion carries himself and his face like he's the smuggest person on the planet and it's painful to experience. He was a great lead encounter designer, but a kinda misguided game director. His general direction isn't wrong, but it's Blizzard's fine art of sticking it to you where it hurts and somehow taking glee in it that he excels in and I think that's a shit quality for a game director.

[Thelxi]

I disagree. He either often lies, or doesn't understand the game. Unlike many my memory is pretty good and for example I remember him specifically saying in one of those Q&As that he is very excited for the new PvP reward systems in Legion, and went on to say that finally PvPers can earn the equivalent of mythic raiding gear. It's just a dirty way of selling a product.

[RSKindred]

Just to trigger you more: I'm playing this game hardcore since the very first vanilla days and I'm against classic servers.

Well I'm with ya there.

[Immitis]

hes definitely the best person to be the face of the company, hes very good at talking, representing his views, and most importantly he knows what to do with his fucking hands.

its always a little awkward with the other blizzard devs when they present or are in q&A's but ion is always calm and even if i dont always agree with his pov he atleast outlines it very well and his intentions. probably has to do with his background as a lawyer.

[nexellent]

Hes a clueless dev who thinks traits are as interesting as new abilities lmfao.

[FelPlague]

It's funny that Kalgan never ruined the game despite being the Game Director since Cata.

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20745634941
http://www.wowhead.com/forums&topic=33463
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...vercraft/page3

[Arbs]

Ion had done a great job as Game Director, so many arm designers who are more clueless than they know.

- - - Updated - - -

people have not ever bitched about anyone.
Ghost cralwer is ruining the game
Mike is ruining the game
Celestalon is ruining the game
Chris is ruining the game
Ion is ruinign the game
Goldie is ruining the game
etc

Yepp, well said.

[ey b0ss]

Nice bait m8.

[Wondercrab]

He's fantastic for all those reasons and more. I think the thing people really undervalue with Ion is the fact that he's so willing to speak directly and candidly with the playerbase. He's calm, articulate, and he's always able to explain the dev team's goals in a rational manner.

Whether you agree with some of the design decisions the WoW team make or not (goodness knows there are a few that really bug me), it's absolutely a blessing that we have someone like Ion at the head who's able and willing to engage with the community the way he does. A lot of game devs are bad at the social side of their job, only work for their paycheck, or don't appreciate the value of being open and candid with their audience. Ion is a real gem in this industry, especially within the AAA marketspace, and I'm very glad he's the one guiding the WoW ship right now.

[FelPlague]

I was jesting. Since Kalgan was always very private.. and .. quiet..
Ah hell why am I explaining the joke...

derp

There is lots who will try to make those original devs to be literal gods and pretend they were perfect.

[Micronetic]

I don't know but I like Ion.

[McNeil]

When I look at Ion I see more of a lawyer rather than a game director. Give me back Jeffrey Kaplan.

[Axaion]

GC is doing monthly Q&As for LOL right now and they also do a dev diary with entries almost every month (sometimes it's more than one per month). The fact that you think this dev team's communication is as good as it gets just shows that really you don't play any other game. You're Ion's favorite type of customer, grats!

Show me another -wow lead gave dev- that did the same

ill wait

[IceMan1763]

When Ion was lead raid designer both the raids and the game itself were much better.

Because GC was axing the shit ideas like artifacts and randomly distributed legendaries that I'm certain were proposed in his time as lead and encouraging great QOL changes for the game. His team introduced systems that helped negate RNG (badges for one) instead of increasing RNG in every possible corner of the game. In other words, GC led a design team that made the game fun, accessible, and challenging at the high end all at the same time. Ion leads a design team that made mythic raiding a full time job, introduced boring as fuck grinds everywhere, and sent classes and specs back to ridiculous levels of simplicity and hid the good gameplay behind artifacts and having the right legiondary.

At least for my tastes, Ion and his team have not taken the game in an enjoyable direction for me and the frustrating part is that I feel like his team is making mistakes which were corrected by GC's design team years ago. For example, GC firmly believe that "increase damage by X%" type talents were boring, pointless, and really not a choice at high levels of play. Ion re-introduced an entire pointless, grindy, and very damaging (balance wise) tier of exactly that type of talent with paragon traits, which Legion would have been MUCH better without.

Just because Ion did a great job with Ulduar (and I mean that genuinely) doesn't mean he's suited to be game director.

- - - Updated - - -

Show me another -wow lead gave dev- that did the same

ill wait

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Developer_Watercooler

I count 14 entries by GC, and he also used to actually go on the forums from time to time to discuss issues. He also did class specific Q&As which he personally participated in (at times). I pretty much guarantee those were FAR more effective than the PR stunt Q&As Ion does. So, GC basically invented the Q&A and Ion has now turned it from something useful to something useless.

Here's a quote about GC I found randomly from way back when he was actually the lead designer:

"For all the times I've disagreed with what GC has to say, I do respect him that much more for actually answering a lot of the communities posts. It's a shame some think that just because he doesn't answer their opinions or questions that he must be ignorant. I'm sure he reads but he's also a systems designer for the game. Posting on the forums isn't their first priority.

I can't wait for the Death Knight, Warlock, Warrior and Paladin Q&A sections. But I'll probably read all the classes regardless."

[Lefrog]

Because GC was axing the shit ideas like artifacts and randomly distributed legendaries that I'm certain were proposed in his time as lead and encouraging great QOL changes for the game. His team introduced systems that helped negate RNG (badges for one) instead of increasing RNG in every possible corner of the game. In other words, GC led a design team that made the game fun, accessible, and challenging at the high end all at the same time. Ion leads a design team that made mythic raiding a full time job, introduced boring as fuck grinds everywhere, and sent classes and specs back to ridiculous levels of simplicity and hid the good gameplay behind artifacts and having the right legiondary.

At least for my tastes, Ion and his team have not taken the game in an enjoyable direction for me and the frustrating part is that I feel like his team is making mistakes which were corrected by GC's design team years ago. For example, GC firmly believe that "increase damage by X%" type talents were boring, pointless, and really not a choice at high levels of play. Ion re-introduced an entire pointless, grindy, and very damaging (balance wise) tier of exactly that type of talent with paragon traits, which Legion would have been MUCH better without.

I like both GC and Ion well enough, but this was eye opening. I've never really thought about how the game director influenced the game, I just assumed a lot of game design was based on flavor of the month stuff and complete rng grinds were popular.

GC did try to limit a lot of the randomness though.