Tides of Vengeance Developer Q&A - Ion Hazzikostas

[Dracullus]

dont know why ppl have a problem with ion.

He's tanking whole WoW dev team. Forum hate is loud, but mostly mindless. If team would put janitor in these Q&As, they would think that janitor is source of all problems.

For example, I saw many post from people who thought that Ghostcrawler was better game director and he got too much hate. But he was NEVER game director, he just interacted with community the most.

I like that Ion take more reponsibility than Chilton, who just send people like Cory Stockton to do interviews, so hate was focused on them.

[Lei]

Ion as a GAME DIRECTOR has the most saying as to where the game goes. It literally means he directs the game to where it will go.
So when someone (I wonder who came up with that, amongst many decisions in the past 5-6 years...) came up with the azerite armor concept, he had to say the last word as in "yay" or "nay". And he said yay. Someone said "yay" to legendaries in Legion, and professions and reputations and islands too. Who do you think it was?
I would think nobody "above him" there is to spend sleepless nights thinking what to do with wow, and how to direct the game director to make him do those ideas, that's literally Ion's and his team's job. Hence Game Director.
Do people seriously think there is a Game Director Director? And he has a Game Director Director Director above him? Wtf?

[Corroc]

Patch notes were thorough, but not complete.
The team didn't mean to break the addon, but can't restore the functionality.
This was a quick change that wasn't fully thought out on the team's part. It was hotfixed in at the start of the season.
The team forgot to tell players about this at the start of Battle for Azeroth.
The team is never truly satisfied with the state of class design.
It's hard to keep every spec unique.

Nice try, next time watch the Q/A.

[Niwes]

And what can we conclude from all of these Q&A's combined together? That they hear us? That they're looking into it but not for this patch? That "in the long term, it will be fine"?

It's the same riddle every single time, he talks a lot but says very little. Even if he's a mere messenger, he's a horrible one. I'd rather have a person who is a good speaker convey these pre-scripted messages than this monotone machine.

you just expect too much. development takes time. they do more often QnAs than they have to say something. its a marketing mechanism to show players: we are here. thats all. yes, ion talk a lot and say just a little. because there is just a little. the guy you wish would come on stage, tell you the hard facts in 2min without context and leave. is this better ? no clue. but i am sure as hell, ppl would even more complain about that. because facts i can also read in text notes. ion at least delivers context.

maybe ppl expect too much, what can happen in 4 weeks in a game like wow...

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He's tanking whole WoW dev team. Forum hate is loud, but mostly mindless. If team would put janitor in these Q&As, they would think that janitor is source of all problems.

For example, I saw many post from people who thought that Ghostcrawler was better game director and he got too much hate. But he was NEVER game director, he just interacted with community the most.

I like that Ion take more reponsibility than Chilton, who just send people like Cory Stockton to do interviews, so hate was focused on them.

yep. ofc sheep almost hate the face they present to them to transmit the message.

chilton and stockton both were horrible imo. greg street was ok, since he also at least tried to give context and tried hard that ppl understand whats behind. sometimes too hard for my taste. all in all ion at least give context.

in the end its not ion. its not the wow team. its the management and the will of the share holders that dictate the direction and foremost give ion a budget of x. imo the wow just tries to make the best they can out of a mid range budget.

a game director that played that much wow like ion has, ofc has A LOT of ideas what can be done with wow. but in the end, he have to serve the customers, the shareholders and have to get all together in a giant monotlith wow is.

maybe some ppl could do it better. but i am sure as hell, there are also a lot, that can do it worse.

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Ion as a GAME DIRECTOR has the most saying as to where the game goes. It literally means he directs the game to where it will go.
So when someone (I wonder who came up with that, amongst many decisions in the past 5-6 years...) came up with the azerite armor concept, he had to say the last word as in "yay" or "nay". And he said yay. Someone said "yay" to legendaries in Legion, and professions and reputations and islands too. Who do you think it was?
I would think nobody "above him" there is to spend sleepless nights thinking what to do with wow, and how to direct the game director to make him do those ideas, that's literally Ion's and his team's job. Hence Game Director.
Do people seriously think there is a Game Director Director? And he has a Game Director Director Director above him? Wtf?

do you ever have worked in a giant company like blizz. seems like not. you forget that small word called budget. why he said yai to azerite ? because its cheap.

ppl have no clue what cost effective development means these days. i am a software dev since 20 years, so i at least know how things go. and imo some kiddy ppl here have completely no clue how the business world ticks and have completely no clue what they even talk about. a LOT of BS here. i fear of eye and brain cancer here..

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just to add: i am not happy with a lot of things in BfA too. but this doesnt mean i am too stupid to have some reality check. if i no longer like for what i pay, i stop paying 15 bugs a month. simple as that.

[Lei]

do you ever have worked in a giant company like blizz. seems like not. you forget that small word called budget. why he said yai to azerite ? because its cheap.

ppl have no clue what cost effective development means these days. i am a software dev since 20 years, so i at least know how things go. and imo some kiddy ppl here have completely no clue how the business world ticks and have completely no clue what they even talk about. a LOT of BS here. i fear of eye and brain cancer here..

I've been saying the same thing about the budget stuff for a long time now. And I'm not some kiddy. Nevertheless, it doesn't work, does it? Players simply don't like it, and the relief only comes in ~5-6 months. There are contious bad decisions regards the game. We are mostly talking simple decisions here "will the players like it or not" type of things. They are completely disconnected from the playerbase, so the budget stuff doesn't even apply here, wow can be the cheapest game if players don't like it and don't play it because it's that bad.

[Alkizon]

There are effectively 36 distinct classes.

Finally! It was officially recognized (exactly this wording)

[Walkerbo]

So the team had no idea that pruning class abilities and spells without any replacement or new abilities and spells would not be fun?
How have they become so isolated from players that they could not anticipate that reducing/removing player choices would not be well received.

[Deianeira]

Blizzard really does seem like it's imploding right now. The devs are majorly out of touch and it's sad to see.

Also,


That was the biggest load of bs. BFA was the worst pruning to date.

What is it that they pruned away in BfA in those major ways that its the worst in the games history?

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I mean you are quoting the guy who thinks firing Ion will solve everything.

Rationality isn't their strong suit. Or knowledge of industries/business for that matter.

Seems to me we have had this before, where people cry about the Game Director/Lead Designer endlessly and want him removed. And when he quits/is removed a while after they be like "Those were the days wish we could have him back"

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just seems like someone who can reason, to me

Well it seems all he got to attack him is to insinuate that he is gay as if that have anything to do with anything. Also the sad personal attacks on Lore´s appearance is telling aswell.

[JacobusRex]

Ion's answers sound like a corporate puppet speaking... he's such a drained, passionless lackey who's ruining this game with these greedy content-stretching choices. It's disgusting.

[Novaice]

should just give "blank" keystones and let the players choose to run the dungeons they want to run.

[Roar-Powah]

With Ion at the helm of WoW i cannot see this game getting any better for the foreseeable future. blizz need to go it alone, away from activision, they need to bring people in who have a passion for mmorpg. This will all happen when world peace comes into play...

[OGhawaiian]

would love some new demons for us warlocks that would be nice