Should the WoW team hand the reins over to younger talent?

[Lionhearte0]

In the wake of this controversy, now seems a good a time as any to shuffle leadership roles in Blizzard. Hand over WoW to the young people who applied to Blizzard because they grew up loving Warcraft - people who appreciate the old lore but have new ideas.

Sega did something similar in recent years and we got Sonic Mania out of it. 9.2 is already going to be super delayed anyways.

The reason why the game is crap is because of the younger developers who play mobile games all day instead of RPGs like the old guard did. And that's what Allen Adham says, not me.

[TidalConflux]

Fuck Ion -- but the amount of people putting him in with Kotick, Townsend, and Brack due to the ineptness of the corporate leadership in a Blizzard sexual harassment lawsuit is a room temperature IQ take.

[Cosmic Janitor]

The reason why the game is crap is because of the younger developers who play mobile games all day instead of RPGs like the old guard did. And that's what Allen Adham says, not me.

I mean according to recent news the problem might be that they play CoD all day instead of making stuff while on the clock

[Ihavewaffles]

this is the last expansion, calling it

[Zyrinx]

Yeah age isn't the problem here.

A change is needed, on that we agree. But that was the case prior to 7/24 as well, for different reasons.

[ClassicPeon]

Objectively? no. Ofcourse they shouldnt

Subjectively? Depends what kind of leadership takes over. Is it going to be full on sjw then they might aswell pack up and close shop. Literally noone has interest in those kinds of games

[bloodykiller86]

See previous reply on topic. In short, he's failed to address ongoing internal issues in a supervisory position, he's helped foster an antagonistic attitude towards player feedback that would be downright killing the game anyway, and he's done a damn bad job as Game Director himself.

Even as a raid designer he hasn't been all that great. He may have produced like... one groundbreaking raid (Ulduar) but underneath that jewel is a tonne of duds.

how do you know he helped foster any of that? do you have any proof or are you just guessing? some player feedback is absolute garbage but some is warranted. i dont think content in WoW is bad, almost all raids are great and dungeons are pretty good this go around as well. problem is open world content isnt nearly as good as it should be and some systems feel like tier set bonuses would be better over all. grinds just for keeping us on a treadmill are bad. i blame that on many reasons besides Ion. remember WoW started down this rabbit hole under old leadership. people love to blame activision or Ion when theyve been doing this for many years

[ClassicPeon]

this is the last expansion, calling it

Ofcourse its not. Blizzard is making tonnes of money oO

[Miindzo]

Why not both? A healthy mix is usually the way to go. All new or all old ideas is generally not the way to go.

[DesoPL]

Kotick needs to go. Townsend needs to go. Brack needs to go. Hazzikostas needs to go. Pretty much any executive-level staff member who allowed the company to become the horrible workplace it apparently is needs to be purged from Activision Blizzard.

That needs to happen first before Blizzard can even think of restoring their status as a prestigious games developer.

Pretty much this, until all of them stays nothing will change. Maybe change might be forced not by court... But by shareholders, but i doubt on that...

[Alydael]

In the wake of this controversy, now seems a good a time as any to shuffle leadership roles in Blizzard. Hand over WoW to the young people who applied to Blizzard because they grew up loving Warcraft - people who appreciate the old lore but have new ideas.

Sega did something similar in recent years and we got Sonic Mania out of it. 9.2 is already going to be super delayed anyways.

I think they should.

The current team has failed by every measure. No one likes the systems, constant content droughts (unable to keep up content pace), low quality of content (not as good as past ex pacs) and they constantly have to change the story (they aren't even consistent in the lore). Now we have this discrimination? They could not even keep their office/ culture in order! They failed at basically everything (even being just decent human beings and treating women correctly).

Where have they succeeded? You could argue that "the game still makes a profit....." That's a bit of a tired argument with little thought put into (if any).
The truth is that the game doesn't make near what it could make. You are talking about a game that was posting between 11-14 mil active subs a month. It is now down below 2 mil (if even that).

That is a complete and total failure by any measure.

Times up guys- it just didn't work out. Let some new blood have a shot, don't be greedy and keep holding on to something that is very obviously not working out at all (it's been a total train wreck).

[Gaidax]

this is the last expansion, calling it

Haha nope.

They will easy make 5 more expansions the very least. WoW makes pretty damn insane $$, it's not going to be dropped anytime soon.

[Soon-TM]

Why not both? A healthy mix is usually the way to go. All new or all old ideas is generally not the way to go.

There often is a mix of old and young people at any workplace. The problem sometimes arises when the new blood is expected to do exactly the same thing that the old guard did, which pretty much negates the whole point of getting said new blood.

In this case, if a hypothetical new lead was appointed by the same HR department that appointed Ion, with the same higher ups imposing the same metrics, all within the same company culture... Well, you get the picture.

[Chumahki]

There are some people who need to be replaced, sure, but there's no reason to be so bigoted about it. Ageism is real, and it destroys lives. Why OP is not infracted, I don't understand. Check your privilege, bro. You won't have it forever.

[roboscorcher]

this is the last expansion, calling it

Production has apparently halted mid-lawsuit, so who knows.

Ideally, I'd like retail to take a hiatus during the lawsuit, and sever ties with Activision. Hopefully Kotick will see all the negative press and dump Blizzard. He would see this as a smart cost-effective move, but maybe this could be Blizzard's chance to return to the old ways: releasing content when it's actually done. Maybe some of the old devs would return, and artists. I'd like to see Russell Brower return as composer, and who wouldn't love to see Metzen return for a Thrall redemption arc?

Let's bring the talent back. I think it was Metzen himself who, when was responding to the hatred of Garrosh as warchief, said something like "you need the lows to reach the highs".

Of course, it would take a miracle for Bliz to split from Activision. Our most likely scenario is that the talent continues migrating to better upstart studios like Dreamhaven.

[McNeil]

IMO the younger talent are better off working on their own projects rather than taking over a 17 year old game and trying to keep it afloat by putting on more lipstick. The original game was made with a vision that came from the original team, and new people don't share this same vision and will design the game around what they think is best. Its why I wish Blizzard would make new games and new IP's more often rather than just milking the same thing over and over again. Hearthstone was a huge succes, Heroes of the Storm not so. Overwatch is a new IP and performed greatly, but its not been given the attention it deserves.

The WoW team should just have actual talent no matter what age.

[Gaidax]

Production has apparently halted mid-lawsuit, so who knows.

Ideally, I'd like retail to take a hiatus during the lawsuit, and sever ties with Activision. Hopefully Kotick will see all the negative press and dump Blizzard. He would see this as a smart cost-effective move, but maybe this could be Blizzard's chance to return to the old ways: releasing content when it's actually done. Maybe some of the old devs would return, and artists. I'd like to see Russell Brower return as composer, and who wouldn't love to see Metzen return for a Thrall redemption arc?

Let's bring the talent back. I think it was Metzen himself who, when was responding to the hatred of Garrosh as warchief, said something like "you need the lows to reach the highs".

Of course, it would take a miracle for Bliz to split from Activision. Our most likely scenario is that the talent continues migrating to better upstart studios like Dreamhaven.

This is also nonsense, don't take some tweet from some guy nobody heard about as some sort of gospel truth.

This is not the first and not the last Blizzard PR fuckup and like every time, there will be some waves for a while and then they just move on business as usual.

And I'd be wary saying Dreamheaven is a "better" studio seeing it is headed by Mike "I had no idea" Morhaime and the old frat boys who are largely responsible for this whole fuckup.

[Timester]

Production has apparently halted mid-lawsuit, so who knows.

Ideally, I'd like retail to take a hiatus during the lawsuit, and sever ties with Activision. Hopefully Kotick will see all the negative press and dump Blizzard. He would see this as a smart cost-effective move, but maybe this could be Blizzard's chance to return to the old ways: releasing content when it's actually done. Maybe some of the old devs would return, and artists. I'd like to see Russell Brower return as composer, and who wouldn't love to see Metzen return for a Thrall redemption arc?

Let's bring the talent back. I think it was Metzen himself who, when was responding to the hatred of Garrosh as warchief, said something like "you need the lows to reach the highs".

Of course, it would take a miracle for Bliz to split from Activision. Our most likely scenario is that the talent continues migrating to better upstart studios like Dreamhaven.

Check Russel's twitter to see what he really thinks of Blizzard. "Worst 12 years of my life."

And Metzen, although I like the guy, its well known that he had a drinking problem during is time at Blizzard.

The lawsuit is manly because of the "good old team" culture of Rock and Roll Superstars attitude.

[Cæli]

AHAHAHAHAH.

I sure hope the licence holder will never do something that silly.
you don't magically acquire the competence to make a good wow game.
passion is one thing, but if indie games taught us one thing, it's that passion does not equals talent.
and talent is not enough when we're talking about a game like wow.

if this "youth" isn't able to come up with a warcraft 3 level set up, a wotlk level music, a wow vanilla level soul:
OUT
they should have no business taking important decisions as it will make the whole situation even worse.
the transformation of retail wow into a cheap asian f2p mmo artstyle was enough.
what we have is not wow, we have people who like wow trying to replicate wow, and failing to do so continuously for many years.
only some aspect of game design and some select art element stands out, but not much more. so no.

[ClassicPeon]

Production has apparently halted mid-lawsuit, so who knows.

Ideally, I'd like retail to take a hiatus during the lawsuit, and sever ties with Activision. Hopefully Kotick will see all the negative press and dump Blizzard. He would see this as a smart cost-effective move, but maybe this could be Blizzard's chance to return to the old ways: releasing content when it's actually done. Maybe some of the old devs would return, and artists. I'd like to see Russell Brower return as composer, and who wouldn't love to see Metzen return for a Thrall redemption arc?

Let's bring the talent back. I think it was Metzen himself who, when was responding to the hatred of Garrosh as warchief, said something like "you need the lows to reach the highs".

Of course, it would take a miracle for Bliz to split from Activision. Our most likely scenario is that the talent continues migrating to better upstart studios like Dreamhaven.

Ok so you are obviously talking a whole lot of nonsense here.

Do you not know who is literally leading dreamhaven? What kind of staff is filling it up atm?