Warcraft Radio Interview with Ion Hazzikostas

[Kyphael]

What about not having Vol'jin die to demon poison?

Uh... sure! He wouldn't have been Warchief in an ideal world, though, Garrosh would have permanently inherited the mantle so it could be taken seriously and Grommash Hold isn't a revolving door like a manager's office at CVS.

[JacobusRex]

Can't remember who it was but a developer who left said they had a "we're all rockstars" attitude in the office.

They believe they can do no wrong.

"Backlash? The players clearly don't understand our genius."


The Nzoth ending cinematic had a dislike ratio that was so bad they de-listed the video like cowards. Yet they're "happy with how it all turned out".

This. Ego and delusion go hand in hand at Bliz*static Activision static*zard. They'll pull a China every time now. *diseased, rotting corpses and burning buildings surrounding them* "Happy with how it all turned out."

[Lei]

Funny enough, BFA's ending is similar to Cata's. The main bad guy only really makes an appearance in the last raid and like Thrall with the dragon soul, the player uses Azeroth's soul to finish him. Slightly better since it's not an NPC being the hero, but basically the same ending.

Well, one could argue that Deathwing fucked up Azeroth pretty good. You could see his doing all around Azeroth. You could see Sinestra after an "affair" with him. And also he used to fly into zones and roast everything to crisp. Not to mention the revamped leveling experience related to him in the "dustbowl" zone (Badlands?) What did Nzoth do in game? Pffffffhhhh.

[FatGandalf]

Ion must be smoking crack

[Yarathir]

Well, one could argue that Deathwing fucked up Azeroth pretty good. You could see his doing all around Azeroth. You could see Sinestra after an "affair" with him. And also he used to fly into zones and roast everything to crisp. Not to mention the revamped leveling experience related to him in the "dustbowl" zone (Badlands?) What did Nzoth do in game? Pffffffhhhh.

Hey now, he spooged purple over like two zones nobody went to anymore.

[Orby]

I mean FFXIV is basically what people on here fantasize about. The gearing system you can basically count to the hour when you will get a new piece of gear. Fights are fun as well as challenging if you decide to go that route, story is also very good (at least recent expansion is).

Yea I have watched my girlfriend play. It looks beautiful, but as for investment I just like Warcraft more due to having played those games since 1994 and have developed an attachment to that world over that time. The reason I played WoW to begin with was because of the RTS games, I had that familiarity.

I have no connection to the Final Fantasy game and so its world feels unimportant to me. If I had a love for Final fantasy's world I'd be playing for sure. That's the important hing about MMO's for me. You need that investment. I see a lot of MMO's release games and make these beautiful worlds but they mean nothing to me so the game tends to lose interest.

[Penegal]

I mean, you're just wrong. I get it you're trying to insult them and the young boy, but if that was the case, someone like you would have his job. But you don't. Do I agree with everything they're doing? No way. I hate corruption gearing system. TF/WF was better in the sense that at least the item was an upgrade no matter what if you already had the same piece. But to set the bar so low is just dumb. Yes we can and should rag on them from time to time. But BFA is nothing like the disaster of Cata or WoD.

If any of the people screaming how bad the game is and how their version was perfect were given control, they would have ran the game into the ground far earlier than Blizzard did.

[Jasper Kazai]

The one potential saving grace of the whole N'Zoth crap could be if the events of 8.3 all turn out to be an illusion we're experiencing in our minds. That we don't actually kill N'Zoth yet. I highly, highly doubt they'd ever do something potentially cool like that, but it would be nice. Then we could have to sacrifice the Heart of Azeroth just to get out of the illusion, like how we got rid of the artifacts.

[Domixux]

The one potential saving grace of the whole N'Zoth crap could be if the events of 8.3 all turn out to be an illusion we're experiencing in our minds. That we don't actually kill N'Zoth yet. I highly, highly doubt they'd ever do something potentially cool like that, but it would be nice. Then we could have to sacrifice the Heart of Azeroth just to get out of the illusion, like how we got rid of the artifacts.

This idea sounds actually really cool, but probably won't happen. Its far more likely, that we will channel the heart of azeroth into sargeras sword as well. I mean at this point the sword just becomes a major trash landfill for past expansions contents. Maybe blizzard will leave the blade in shadowlands as well, so we can channel our 'Cloak of Shadow' (which gets fueled by shadow points of course) into it as well once the expansion is over?

[Dystemper]

Why does this piece of shit still work at Blizzard d. Fucking fire his worthless ass already

[Verdugo]

Why does this piece of shit still work at Blizzard d. Fucking fire his worthless ass already

Why would they fire a puppet.

[dizzzave]

If they are happy with the lottery system that is corruption they can honestly go fuck themselves.

- - - Updated - - -



And on the other hand people are getting benched because it's not dropping for them. This system is miraculously shitty, even for Blizzard's standards these later years.

Just buy some BOEs brah.

[Lei]

The one potential saving grace of the whole N'Zoth crap could be if the events of 8.3 all turn out to be an illusion we're experiencing in our minds. That we don't actually kill N'Zoth yet. I highly, highly doubt they'd ever do something potentially cool like that, but it would be nice. Then we could have to sacrifice the Heart of Azeroth just to get out of the illusion, like how we got rid of the artifacts.

I feel like for that to work they'd have to wink all along with 8.3-s announcement and ptr cycle etc. BfA was no way in the state for this type of "surprise" just to work on it's own. And then let's not forget the cinematic. In order for that to work, the end cinematic should have been satisfying, feel like an absolute win.

[sam86]

Is that why the ending cinematic is still unlisted? Or why it is disliked into oblivion? Tell me, Ion, do you think you cannot do no wrong?

did u really expect anything else from him? i follow his Q&A since Legion, and I love legion expansion overall but i think i stopped watching his Q&A videos even during Legion, with how detached he was from community
Basically he blames us for any wrong and how we didn't believe in his amazing visionary, doubt he is the democratic type who collect ideas, it is obvious he is a tyrant in office who force everyone to do his amazing 'views', which strangely oppose half of what he said way back before he joined blizz when he was still raider in wow

- - - Updated - - -

I have no connection to the Final Fantasy game and so its world feels unimportant to me. If I had a love for Final fantasy's world I'd be playing for sure.

no u probably still won't
I played FF8 for months, did every single thing possible in it, i played also ff 7 and 10, hence the problem
FF has zero attachment or connection for anything, they only share title, heck some games don't even focus on magic in first place
FF online for all i care can be called generic mmo and will still have same thing, that's the problem of FF, even if u played every single FF game out there, it build zero attachment to the brand, just gameplay
I also like u been loyal to wc franchise, i still remember during my childhood play wc1, my teenage play wc2 and how i loved to hear mission briefing and how many hours spent in costume map, and wc3 was a whole new lvl of awesome (i still have wc3 videos on my phone)
I have FF8 intro and Edea theme on my phone, but they have zero attachment to the mmo that exist, it give me zero motivation to play it, on reverse having wc3 files makes me want to check wow and hope for best
Legion did surprise me after WoD so who knows...

[Scratches]

If any of the people screaming how bad the game is and how their version was perfect were given control, they would have ran the game into the ground far earlier than Blizzard did.

Yeah, about that...

That was exactly Ion's path to Game Director (and result)....

[Penegal]

Yeah, about that...

That was exactly Ion's path to Game Director (and result)....

Well, yeah. I just meant they'd do much worse than him.

[Starfals]

Worst ending ever, focus on the hero cuz we are important? Then make it better, this was very poor ending, for both the bad guy and for the "hero"

[Ophenia]

They won't test the mythic endboss on PTR to maintain the mystery, hence delivering said boss in a piss-poor state... But what's the mystery ? Most of the mythic phases are not surprising at all or disappointing. I could understand if there were some lore-breaking discoveries during/after the fight but that's not the case (in order to not piss off casuals apparently), so why not ?

Even the before-last Expac Endboss Mythic phase, aka Argus the Unmaker, was disappointing af:
- "Mythic Phase" being in fact a watered-down Heroic Phase 4 mechanically (fewer orbs, no rain drops or whatever those were, the feeling nothing happens while it was a lot more tense in LFR lol)
- "Mythic encounter" outright removing one phase (P3), which in fact also reduced Aman'thul impact on this encounter to nothing (no Temporal Blast), he could as well just disappear from existence. Which is sad if the Mythic encounter is the cannon one.

[Flower Milk]

I feel like people don't get that Ion works for Blizzard, no matter how bad some stuff is - he has to stick to a script and defend his employers - he's not gonna trash on the people who pay him is he

There are other lead game directors at Blizzard, like Jeff Kaplan for example, who just straight up tell the players when they feel like they made a mistake, want to fix it, and talk about some of their ideas they have for fixing it and ask people to provide feedback on what they think is the best option.

Ion could do the same, why doesn't he?

[Accendor]

Ion talks about the disappointment some felt for N'Zoth's end, but at the end of the day we are the heroes of the story and we will always defeat villains and make way for new villains to enter.

So this is just going to be the routine then and we will never see any interesting villains. This is like watching a Power Ranger episode where they introduce a new monster and just gets destroyed at the end, except that the monsters in Power Rangers actually manage to have some more depth than what we get. Arthas was the last good villain and we'll never see anyone at his level anymore.

Thats not entirely fair, Garrosh was not that bad. He was not perfect and they screwed his story a bit up, but all in all he was ok.