We need Ion hazzikostas THE PLAYER back not the Game Director to make WOW better

[shaunika123]

What is GGG?

Grinding Gear Games

the developers of Path of Exile.

[Chakah]

A dev once said being a good dev is like being the captain of a luxury cruiser. You have fuel, manpower, and patrons on the boat. You need to listen to what the patrons want to do to and what would make the cruise the best experience possible for them but you also have to weigh those desires against the manpower and fuel you have to expend on accomplishing what your patrons want. Then you just have to go with it and hope it's enough.

I think this is a decent analogy.

Cruise ships have performance limitations. They aren't doing donuts in the harbor. If you try to turn it too fast, things will break.
The captain isn't going to tell the passengers that the number three piston has a pressure leak. Its not their business and he wouldn't want to cause a disturbance or invite the amateur engineers among the passengers down to the engine room to take a look.

What we don't see as players are the internal communications of the development team. We don't see the weekly status meetings where Ion has to bitch at his team that they still haven't fixed X, Y, or Z. We don't see that 'Bob' had a fix for Chainheal, but he's out of the office because he fell off his mountain bike and won't be in the office for 3 weeks per doctor's orders. Maybe he could fire a weaker developer or two, but how long is it going to take to onboard a new developer to the codebase. Is it better to team them together to reduce mistakes?

The vocal, angry part of the WoW community would be well advised to not try to make him a scapegoat. The man's got some real spine to do as many public outreach events as he does. I remember well how Ghostcrawler was practically burned in effigy during his time in the spotlight. Now, many of his critics are fans. There is no need to target Ion directly.

By all means, be vocal to Blizzard about what you like and don't like about BfA - But targeting a developer just because you know his name and is face isn't fair and isn't going to fix the issues you are having.

I feel like there's a total disconnect at BLIZ from the above logic and the above is something they should take to heart. But from personal experience, interacting with them, I've learned that praise gets responses and criticism, no matter how respectful I try to be, gets ignored and goes without response. (I've even tested this several times and see the result to be fairly predictable.)

Its pretty easy to respond to praise, isn't it? Say 'thank you'. Done
Criticism is orders of magnitude harder. You have to try to understand intent. You have to integrate a different viewpoint into your own. You have to evaluate that viewpoint for its merits. You have to decide if you can take a reasonable action to 'correct' the issue. And you need to come up with an implementation plan. All of these things take way, way, way more time and effort than a simple 'Thanks'. They best you should expect as an immediate reply is a 'Thanks for your feedback.'

[Al Gorefiend]

Grinding Gear Games

the developers of Path of Exile.

Oh, but isn't that more like Diablo than WoW?

[Perkunas]

Oh, but isn't that more like Diablo than WoW?

Not anymore...

[shaunika123]

Oh, but isn't that more like Diablo than WoW?

yes it is

I'M not comparing the games, I'm comparing the developers.

Grinding Gear Games communicates and has dialogues with the playerbase, they're not shy to immediately admit to fucking somethign up and fixing it right away.
they listen to feedback and respond immediately. and the amount of content they deliver is insane.

[Al Gorefiend]

yes it is

I'M not comparing the games, I'm comparing the developers.

Grinding Gear Games communicates and has dialogues with the playerbase, they're not shy of immediately admit to fucking somethign up and fixing it right away.
they listen to feedback and respond immediately. and the amount of content they deliver is insane.

Yeah my least favorite thing about Blizzard is that they never admit to screwing up. It's got to be a company policy, no way would any dev say "we made a good expansion" when it came to WoD. Yet they've never said anything about regretting something from WoD aside from the launch week fiasco.

[Dusty tome]

No one but the most braindead hardcore fanatics give two shits about Classic. Get real.

K bfa bro. You stick to that and don't come asking for lfg in classic when it hits.

[Darkguyver2020]

K bfa bro. You stick to that and don't come asking for lfg in classic when it hits.

What makes you think I'll even want to waste my time playing that fucking Classic garbage?

Fucking WTB Ghostcrawler and the old team back.

You mean the same Ghostcrawler that was constantly the target of everybody's vitriol, much like Ion is now?
It's the "community's" fault that he quit because he was tired of their constant bullshit.

[gd8]

I don't think there is a going back for live wow. What we are seeing is the result of chasing phone gamers for half a decade. It's time to peacefully sunset live and move on to classic.

lol "move on" to a game that already came and went 12 years ago.. Okay

[Perkunas]

You mean the same Ghostcrawler that was constantly the target of everybody's vitriol, much like Ion is now?
It's the "community's" fault that he quit because he was tired of their constant bullshit.

He was actually swooped on by Riot because they wanted AAA talent and were willing to pay more for it. That and I'm sure he wanted to work with something different. I remember him as DeathShrimp from Ensemble Studios, and if ANYTHING League's community is FAR MORE TOXIC than WoW could ever hope to be. He was safer back working with RTS games.

The only people that went all emo and pitched a bitch fit were Tseric and Eyonix.

- - - Updated - - -

lol "move on" to a game that already came and went 12 years ago.. Okay

I don't get the beef, honestly. There's room for both games as they cater to different groups.

[Darkguyver2020]

I don't get the beef, honestly. There's room for both games as they cater to different groups.

If I've learned anything from the way Classic and Retail fans are constantly at each others throats is that they will NEVER get along. Just like the opposing cults that play OSRS and RS3.

[Perkunas]

If I've learned anything from the way Classic and Retail fans are constantly at each others throats is that they will NEVER get along. Just like the cults that play OSRS and RS3.

People can like different shit. I hate country music and I think it's vile noise that sounds like cats in heat, but I don't think that people who enjoy are pieces of shit who need to die. I intend to shift my focus to classic as I prefer the older more traditional style MMO. Many others are going to ignore classic because they like the new bells and whistles and streamlined version. To each their own, really.

[Darkguyver2020]

People can like different shit. I hate country music and I think it's vile noise that sounds like cats in heat, but I don't think that people who enjoy are pieces of shit who need to die. I intend to shift my focus to classic as I prefer the older more traditional style MMO. Many others are going to ignore classic because they like the new bells and whistles and streamlined version. To each their own, really.

Unfortunately you're in the minority.

[ro9ue]

I'm not sure if he actually has control over how much RNG is being forced into the game. Seems like an Activision decision. Ion doesn't have to prove his laurels to me, I've been around long enough to see most of his interviews and contributions to know he's the real deal.

That being said, Azerite Armor is a terrible system and the level of RNG in the current game is disgusting.

[Druidzorz]

he still raids with EJ... he's never been a top end raider/player but he has played the game for a long time, my guess is that he's either making the game exactly as he wants it and he's batshit crazy, or more likely he's getting pressured to make certain changes that people from activision want to see, and since they have no fucking idea how to make and mmo or why wow was so successful in it's early years it's not panning out.

a few more weeks and we'll see if classic is really classic or if it's some reskinned garbage that they "updated" even though there has been a firm "no changes" answer coming from the majority of the classic community. if they left it alone and only changed the things that obviously needed to be changed for this to work like bnet integration then they can continue screwing up retail all they want and i'll happily just play classic and wait for tbc.

So what is it, you want changes or you don't?

[Perkunas]

I'm not sure if he actually has control over how much RNG is being forced into the game. Seems like an Activision decision. Ion doesn't have to prove his laurels to me, I've been around long enough to see most of his interviews and contributions to know he's the real deal.

That being said, Azerite Armor is a terrible system and the level of RNG in the current game is disgusting.

I feel like it's a hostage situation too. He knows this shit is terrible and can't say anything because the money changers at the temple will have him put to death.

[Darkguyver2020]

I feel like it's a hostage situation too. He knows this shit is terrible and can't say anything because the money changers at the temple will have him put to death.

Provided the idiot whiners don't get to him first and have him publicly executed.

[Perkunas]

Provided the idiot whiners don't get to him first and have him publicly executed.

Yeah, dealing with whiners is part of the job. At his core he's a raider and dedicated player. He knows what the problems are but he has no power to fix them. So blaming Ion just because he's communicating the shitty message from on high is a waste of time.

[Kithelle]

We just need Ion gone.

[americandavey]

Yeah, dealing with whiners is part of the job. At his core he's a raider and dedicated player. He knows what the problems are but he has no power to fix them. So blaming Ion just because he's communicating the shitty message from on high is a waste of time.

Has no power to fix them? Quit acting like he is a low level map designer.