Ion and Lore Need to Go

[Muajin76]

I am not saying they need to be fired. They need to be replaced for the Q&As. I feel the streams are just tarnished at this point and Blizz needs to assign a new face to freshen things up for 8.2. I see them and I think, "well, this is all about to be some garbage bullshit." Give me some charisma. Even they look like they want to die during it.

Maybe its just me.

Whom would you replace Ion with?
I think lore just needs to stay consistant and not change on a whim.

[Themerlin]

I am not saying they need to be fired. They need to be replaced for the Q&As. I feel the streams are just tarnished at this point and Blizz needs to assign a new face to freshen things up for 8.2. I see them and I think, "well, this is all about to be some garbage bullshit." Give me some charisma. Even they look like they want to die during it.

Maybe its just me.

I agree.

I avoid the videos for a couple of months now, I can get the rehash from mmo champ.

No point boring myself out by watching two totally un-enthusiastic employees describe their product to the masses.

All I saw when looking at Ion was "Gambling Algorithms" over his head.

[Muajin76]

I would completely ignore FelPlague if I was you. As you can see he/she/it basically completely ignored what Sam said and just went off on a tangent. Rambling.

They completely ignore feedback on features and also completely ignored bugs and rushed this expansion out the door a month early when it clearly wasn't ready.

I think the higher ups/investors gave them a deadline, so it had to get pushed out prematurely. I could be completely wrong on that though. The fact that Blizzard chooses their Q's carefully is pretty bad, it's almost as if they want to avoid questions pertaining to some aspects of the current live game/expac.

[Tipton]

I supported Ion in Legion, but since then there have been to many decisions which have been made to make the game 'better' but not actually better to play.

I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's almost like they want a pristine experience that pleases everyone. Take Azerite Armour, on paper it was a system that upset no one and solved most of the complaints of Legion Artifacts - but ended up being so bland that it has no gaming value or actual desire to progress in.

[DesoPL]

Nope.

Both of them should moved to diffrent projects because both have an conflict with community. How the fuck grinding AP for heart of azeroth can be fun?

[Destinas]

To be honest, I barely ever watch any of the Q&As. I just read recaps from MMO-C, Wowhead, and other sources.

That said, it would not hurt, at all, to have different people come in and talk about the directions of the game. Jeremy Feasel always seems pretty jazzed to talk to people, and he's fairly well-received by the community. It's not like other people can't read notes from other dev teams, and it's not like the community has any sort of healthy attachment to Ion specifically.

As far as Lore, I don't really care about him being there one way or another. It's part of his job now, but they could easily replace him with a dev, or another CM, even if only occasionally. It's pretty obvious that people piss on him for how much information he gave/didn't give the community - which, btw, isn't his choice at all. Devs tell the CMs what they then can and cannot say, and when they are allowed to say things. Blaming Lore for that is just blaming the messenger for the message they delivered. The reason he hasn't been posting lately as much is probably because, y'know, the devs have had him doing other things. However, his attitude (and the attitude of most CMs in the past) has been a bit sarcastic, aggressive, and angry - or it at least comes off this way over text. He's like this less so on Twitter, so I don't know why he's been like this on Blizzard forums more often.

I will also never understand why people care so much about the style and length of Lore's hair. That's the only thing I will absolutely defend him on.
1.) The style is just how it grows out of his head. Some people have very curly hair. If it was short, it would still be curly, so why does that matter?
2.) The length is his choice, because it's his head. You're welcome to dislike it, but you also aren't forced to look at it, at all, ever.

[Topornic]

I would guess you don't like the direction of the game so of course you don't like the Q&A's. Personally I think Ion has been very honest about what they're looking to change and what they're not looking to change and I couldn't ask for more than that out of Q&A sessions. What I despise are sessions in which the host pretends to care about everyone's stupid suggestions and complaints. But hey, that's just me.

As honest as a spineless politician in democracy. The team knows and works on it, soon (tm). We care a lot we discuss it.

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Soon(tm) used to be a meme with Blizzard.

They used to release games when they were ready.


They just don't care anymore. BfA is a copy + paste of Legion but with way less effort put in.

The only thing Blizzard is delaying now are fixes and patches.

[kamuimac]

Nope.

Both of them should moved to diffrent projects because both have an conflict with community. How the fuck grinding AP for heart of azeroth can be fun?

hm but it is fun - for people who do it casualy .

its not their fault that people going bat shit scrazy and farmed up crazy amounts of AP before raid was even open.

[Alvito]

Lore is pretty worthless these days. He used to be somewhat critical of Blizzard and seemed to have his finger on the pulse of both the players, issues with the game and areas of opportunity for improvement. Now he is just a yes man resting on his old persona, now you can just mix in some of his shitty attitude on top of that.

[Alvito]

hm but it is fun - for people who do it casualy .

its not their fault that people going bat shit scrazy and farmed up crazy amounts of AP before raid was even open.

A bit of an assumption there. While it might not directly be any one person's fault when you are punished traits by pushing higher item level gear you do have to grind AP. Sure if you do LFR or normal you will have most traits almost instantly and with little effort, but as you creep into mythic level gear you need up to 14 more AP levels which is a big jump.

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On Lore I'd assume that if half your team was just fired you'd probably not be the friendliest person on earth, especially considering that all the workload was probably just consolidated to a much smaller team.

The players didn't fire his ex coworkers, more over dealing with the player base is literally his job. He shouldn't be such a cock about the job he chose to take.

[WowIsDead64]

They just need to rename Q&A into interview or press conference. Because it's not Q&A, when you can cherry pick questions, you actually want to "answer" to.

[Niffo]

Plus it's a fucking Q & A, not a big stage announcement.

I don't fucking mind. They represent the game, he's a community manager. Act like you enjoy what you're doing, it shows interest. If you see these 2 deepshits it almost feels you're attending a funeral.

[SirBeef]

I don't fucking mind. They represent the game, he's a community manager. Act like you enjoy what you're doing, it shows interest. If you see these 2 deepshits it almost feels you're attending a funeral.

I more interested in what is said than how it is said.

[Pancreatin]

Eh. Take census websites with a grain of salt. They use really skewered metric datas.

Problem with Warcraft realms is that the data ratio hasn't been updated for a long time. But as I said 2 mil active players would still surprise me.

During the api data leak of their sub numbers the census websides had similar numbers 1.9 mill and now its half that.

[Eleccybubb]

During the api data leak of their sub numbers the census websides had similar numbers 1.9 mill and now its half that.

To be fair as I said 1-1.5 mil is my guess.

But census websites irritate me because they use a stupidly skewered metric that relies on a specific achievement or the data being updated over a 30 day period consistently.

But back on topic. I just want a dev team that cares about making a good game. Even when Blizzard were owned by someone during the 90s they still cared about quality and enjoyable experiences.

I mean yeah Nintendo do the same thing but you can tell there's a lot of passion in projects there, CDPR are arguably one of the best devs out there right now and even Square Enix are trying to improve their image by going back to the core concept that a game should be for the players and not the shareholders.

Now it's "how much more can we squeeze out of a sub based game" by throwing MTX hard onto the store at the cost of quality content. And bug free content for that matter.

WoW is not a game for gamers/players anymore. Simple as that.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I think It should be noted that the q&a's really are just a PR stunt. They answer the same couple questions over and over. Then we get to have a question that allows them to make a mini announcement like the transmog one in the last q&a to get a "see, we are listening" that a boy sort of thing. Makes it look like something is actually coming from these things. Then you get a question or two more that you likely are interested in the answer but you will just get the "coming in 8.2...." answer or "we are looking into it...." and then it ends.

It's exactly like a sales pitch meeting when a company comes in trying to sale you a product. Minus Blizzard isn't buying lunch. They give you the speech most don't care about, they make a concession for *you*, and then dodge around bitger questions with "our team (aka lawyers) will get back with you in an email". Text book.

[Beatman]

So, you think if someone looks like a bank accountant would know better just because he looks more acceptable?
Flash news: it won't matter.

Generally no. But in this specific case I think that most bank accountants could do a better job at community-managing than Lore and look better than him at the same time.

[Nebron]

They shouldn't do the Q&A when they have nothing to talk about in the first place. It seems like they decided that making Q&A's sessions will make them look connected with community. But as usually with Blizzard nowadays, most of the things they do is actually counterproductive

[zebreck]

It's really fun watching people get angry at Ion the same way they got angry at Ghoscrawler. Especially because the specific things angering them are, generally, the literal opposites of the things they were mad at Ghostcrawler about. There's also this sense that somehow "no" is not a complete sentence. "Are you utterly removing or totally overhauling one of the primary systems underlying the entire expansoin?" "no" "What won't you answer my questions?!?!?" It's weird. Answers you don't like are still answers.

[Pua]

I think It should be noted that the q&a's really are just a PR stunt.

Pretty much.

The concept is to suggest that players are being listened to, but the actual questions are so laughably picked to avoid any actual information that it's just not worth watching any of these. We're not supposed to learn anything; we're just supposed to appreciate the time taken by a couple of people who look tortured as it happens.

Honestly, I'd love it if they allowed an actual critic to interview them and not just accept the avoidance of actual answers.

It'll simply never happen.