Blizzard hiring an Associate Game Director

[threads]

all they need to do is rewind gear and systems to mop and stop making all their goofy new ideas a required part of power progression

[Nyel]

Incredibly understaffed? They had enough staff to send inordinate amounts of time designing these new layered systems on systems, RNG currencies and loot procs, conduit energy etc.

If they truly didn't have enough people they wouldn't have had time to do all this as well as add new systems every patch.

Class design without these systems is absolutely bare bones. Several specs don't even function properly or are barely played. That's where work is needed, not these useless systems that become obsolete after 2 years anyway. So maybe a shift in focus would help, but getting more people might help as well.

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In the tweet I linked, Holinka is specifically saying that these roles are opening in an effort to grow the team, not to replace vacancies. We can debate if this is also true for the other 40+ open positions, but it does present the question if the current push to expand the team is or isn't indicative of larger ambitions for the future.

For me this indicates two things for certain:
Forum users want new blood on the team? Evidently, so do the developers.
Forum users think WoW is in "maintenance mode"? You don't hire this many new people for maintenance mode.

For me this indicates just that they were working not to their full potential and just tried to keep it low to keep the costs low. Clearly it didn't work out in BfA and Shadowlands and that's why they are going to hire new people to add to their team.

[Gaidax]

all they need to do is rewind gear and systems to mop and stop making all their goofy new ideas a required part of power progression

Nope... they need to do A LOT.

People forget that reason why WoW was so huge back in the days was because it "out-casualed" all other alternatives, while being great quality and responsiveness that feels good.

Contrary to some opinions, WoW quality for content it does have is good and its still as responsive as ever, aside from when they try to stick 200 people same zone + world boss - they need to improve this par somehow.

The issue is that the casual friendliness part of WoW nowadays is nothing special - there is a shitton of much more accessible games with much more "silly casual" content. I took a peek at Asmongold's stream and I can see the guy spending a ton of time doing stuff like tickets gambling, mount races, jumping challenges and such.

That's a lot of casual stuff there that people can really enjoy if done right, the last part is most important because yeah there is Darkmoon Faire, but IMO, it's simply both not good enough and not even there much of the time.

Then WoW has absolutely amazing transmog system that shits bricks on FF14 one, but transmogs are locked behind various restrictions that are not necessary in this day and age in my opinion. Quite frankly - if you want to have a caster who wants to armor up, some battle mage fantasy - then just give it to them. Meaning unlock all Armor mogs regardless of armor type, or at least expand it to include also next closest armor type. Same goes for weapons, just make it as free for all as possible. If that lock wants to mog staff to 2h sword because it looks cool - then heck why not really.

Same goes for classes/races combinations, just lift it all and be done with it. If someone wants to be Tauren Rogue or Lightforged Warlock then so be it - there are enough exceptions in WoW lore as it is to support just about any combination there.

These 3 alone would add insane amount of content for relatively small investment.

[MoanaLisa]

So they're hiring three more developers for the Combat Team as well. Either Blizzard was incredibly understaffed or a ton of people just left or are planning to leave right around the lawsuit.

There was a lot of talk about expanding the development team right around the time the pandemic hit and sent everyone home. It may well be that those plans were delayed because training up people in a WFH environment is just awful. Now that it looks like people are returning to the office it may be if they delayed that team expansion that they're doing it now.

I don't know that they were understaffed but Kotick made a promise that development teams were going to be enlarged on most of ATVI's big titles. That was a while ago but here we are now and it seems to be happening.

Here's a link to a more recent article where Kotick says they will be tripling the size of the development teams by the end of this year. Note the timeline in the quote:

“From the start of 2020 through the end of next year we intend to hire more than 2000 developers. We plan to triple the size of certain franchise teams compared to those team sizes in 2019, and we have aggressive hiring plans around the world including new studios or major expansion in Poland, China, Australia and Canada.”

Activision Blizzard COO Daniel Alegre later reiterated the company’s expanded hiring plans, saying that “with our strategy of increasing game content and frequency, as well as doubling down on live operations, we must and we have to continue to grow our developer base”.

https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news...e-2022-2933665

Seems simple enough. You can wrap yourself in your agendas and debate all you want but what appears to be the simplest explanation is right there in front of you.

[Beefhammer]

Class design without these systems is absolutely bare bones. Several specs don't even function properly or are barely played. That's where work is needed, not these useless systems that become obsolete after 2 years anyway. So maybe a shift in focus would help, but getting more people might help as well.

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For me this indicates just that they were working not to their full potential and just tried to keep it low to keep the costs low. Clearly it didn't work out in BfA and Shadowlands and that's why they are going to hire new people to add to their team.

Or covid stopped/slowed them from growing their team as was planned just before covid struck. Which means SL was made with the appropriate amount of staff. Growing the teams seems like the MO to produce games/content faster as Kotic has been pressuring Blizzard to do recently.

[Kauko]

Because Ion thinks there are only two things in wow. Hardcore raiding and hardcore M+... So someone has to take care of other parts of the game.

[Fabled]

Considering that Ion himself was a forum pleb when he was hired, the idea does have some merit.

He was also a high tier raider and leader of Elitist Jerks. He wasn't just some rando they picked up. It'd be like hiring high end players from Everquest to help develop an MMO...which is exactly what happened with a handful of the Old Guard.

[Azadina]

They're also apparently hiring new class designers across all areas (general design, PvP, and tuning).

Maybe, just maybe, they're finally realizing the game needs new ideas...

They don't need class designers; they had already nailed it back in mop. What they need, is slam revert button as hard as they can, and fire the whole lot they currently have. Leave single person as maintenance.

[Alanar]

I'll do it for free.

We will get back to you.

[Beefhammer]

He was also a high tier raider and leader of Elitist Jerks. He wasn't just some rando they picked up. It'd be like hiring high end players from Everquest to help develop an MMO...which is exactly what happened with a handful of the Old Guard.

Which, wasn't a good idea then either.

[Ivarr]

He was also a high tier raider and leader of Elitist Jerks. He wasn't just some rando they picked up. It'd be like hiring high end players from Everquest to help develop an MMO...which is exactly what happened with a handful of the Old Guard.

That's a fun thought experiment. What would happen if Blizzard hired any of the following people for this role:

- Asmongold
- Bellular
- Taliesin / Evitel

I feel Asmongold would create absurdly grindy 24h instances turning the game into Pristontale.

Bellular would create the densest plot WoW has ever seen

Taliesin would see the battle.net forums as content in its own right and make sure every update contains something that would split the playerbase neatly in half.

[Cracked]

Give me the job, ill fix WoW and then quit.

[Sondrelk]

That's a fun thought experiment. What would happen if Blizzard hired any of the following people for this role:

- Asmongold
- Bellular
- Taliesin / Evitel

I feel Asmongold would create absurdly grindy 24h instances turning the game into Pristontale.

Bellular would create the densest plot WoW has ever seen

Taliesin would see the battle.net forums as content in its own right and make sure every update contains something that would split the playerbase neatly in half.

Most importantly I feel all of them would quickly change their tune from "here is how to fix wow if the drvs only listened" to "game design is hard, start reading up before becoming an armchair developer".

It's infinitely easier to be in opposition to something, simply because nothing is perfect. Especially relevant when the people you cater to us a minority subset. If some streamer got control of WoW development they might make it more like what they want, but they are also likely to kill it for the majority as well.

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Nope... they need to do A LOT.

People forget that reason why WoW was so huge back in the days was because it "out-casualed" all other alternatives, while being great quality and responsiveness that feels good.

Contrary to some opinions, WoW quality for content it does have is good and its still as responsive as ever, aside from when they try to stick 200 people same zone + world boss - they need to improve this par somehow.

The issue is that the casual friendliness part of WoW nowadays is nothing special - there is a shitton of much more accessible games with much more "silly casual" content. I took a peek at Asmongold's stream and I can see the guy spending a ton of time doing stuff like tickets gambling, mount races, jumping challenges and such.

That's a lot of casual stuff there that people can really enjoy if done right, the last part is most important because yeah there is Darkmoon Faire, but IMO, it's simply both not good enough and not even there much of the time.

Then WoW has absolutely amazing transmog system that shits bricks on FF14 one, but transmogs are locked behind various restrictions that are not necessary in this day and age in my opinion. Quite frankly - if you want to have a caster who wants to armor up, some battle mage fantasy - then just give it to them. Meaning unlock all Armor mogs regardless of armor type, or at least expand it to include also next closest armor type. Same goes for weapons, just make it as free for all as possible. If that lock wants to mog staff to 2h sword because it looks cool - then heck why not really.

Same goes for classes/races combinations, just lift it all and be done with it. If someone wants to be Tauren Rogue or Lightforged Warlock then so be it - there are enough exceptions in WoW lore as it is to support just about any combination there.

These 3 alone would add insane amount of content for relatively small investment.

One changed would make if I had the power is to keep the transmog gathering restrictions as they are, but allow players to transmog between all armor types. That way you more organically incentivize having several alts if you want to gather transmog.

I think one of the biggest blunders in WoW though is not reusing assets more. Had they been more liberal with recycling they could have easily had each patch be twice as large by now.
Imagine for instance if each patch of SL also had you do dailies, WQs and killing rares in a given Northrend zone. Ideally with the same no flying restrictions so we don't end up with zones as dead as the revamped zones in BfA.

Doing this, then by the time an expansion is done you would have revamped 3-4 zones, do the same for each expansion and you quickly rack up content.

[Feral Druid ist Op]

Maybe for trash players like you

agree, nothing is a issue for dogshit players unless they wont get 252 gear from a worldquest then they get very angry. They also dont mind doing 20% grey logs as log as the "bad mean" hardcores carrying them (the same ones they flame on this very form).

[Ivarr]

Most importantly I feel all of them would quickly change their tune from "here is how to fix wow if the drvs only listened" to "game design is hard, start reading up before becoming an armchair developer".

It's infinitely easier to be in opposition to something, simply because nothing is perfect. Especially relevant when the people you cater to us a minority subset. If some streamer got control of WoW development they might make it more like what they want, but they are also likely to kill it for the majority as well.

Of course, I'm not saying they would do a good job at it, but it's fun to speculate how their philosophies would be imposed on the game if they had that power.

A game director doesn't get into the minutiae of game design. Their task is to give a broad direction to the team and carefully weigh the amount of resources an idea would require to execute against the benefit it has to the health of the game.

Like BfA poured a considerable amount of resources in Warfronts and Island Expeditions, these were major features announced at Blizzcon. Both got dropped in SL giving the impression that these didn't amount to the reception Blizzard was hoping for.

In a further abstraction Warfront was clearly meant to be a PvE battleground whereas the Island Expeditions were the first steps towards procedural content that then evolved into Thorghast. And it makes sense, self-generating content is the holy grail for Blizzard. Something that keeps going on low maintenance.

Bellular has been encouraging procedural content for years now (alongside his contrived plot theories). So I expect him as a game director would push this even further and an expansion by him would see less raid content, but more procedural experiments.

[Fabled]

Which, wasn't a good idea then either.

It's one of those "sounds good on paper but it's terrible in reality" kinds of things. Just because someones good at something doesn't mean they aren't a garbage person otherwise. Hell, before being hired by Blizzard, Afrasiabi alone was known for his controversial hot takes and feedback of EQ, that should have been a red flag even then.

[Laqweeta]

Probably wants help.
Possibly due to the problems the company is having right now and thinks it’s a good time to bring on new people.
States under job responsibilities: Maintain communication with the community via forum posts, press announcements, interviews, and public appearances. So Ion might be stepping out of the public view (hurray someone new for the mmo-c toxic fan base to blame all of WoW’s problems on).
Might be completely out of his hands and the new higher ups want people to have partners to bounce ideas off of and run as a duo.
Who knows? Speculation is fun.

I mean he's the DIRECTOR of the game - he is DIRECTLY to blame lmfao

Hope this marks Ion's end, WoW has suffered far too long.

[Aleksej89]

no one cares about product quality at blizz anymore.

they just want to put out some PR fires and placate the share holders by wasting company resources and pocketing as much as they can.

there will be absolutely no product improvement from any of these recent blizzard changes, absolutely none.

[Swnem]

yes, you are exactly right here. its all about quarter numbers. and fast paced money. get the most you can get out of it NOW. longterm investment was over after 1999. if it no longer works? damage control, backpedal or start something new. thats how it goes today.

btw: Rockstar Games with GTA showing that longterm investment still could „work“, after 1999. But as a result they also have not the revenue, ATVI Blizz has. So…

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yeah and thats the point: their product dont suffer. they make lots and lots money with it. its just not that good, thats all. and this is a problem for you. but not for them, because they make lots and lots money with it.

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just to be a bit sarcastic here:

they once in the past wanted to listen more to their playerbase / fanbase. therefore they hired some guy from Elitist Jerks. he was a huge wow lover and hardcore gamer. his name was Ion Hazzikostas.

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Ion was a great raid designer. the problem is: he dont raid design since a great while. he is game director.

Peter Principle STRIKED BACK AGAIN

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle)

I mean, again you are ignoring the long term consequences. Surely you are aware of the goodwill destruction that happens. You are assuming people will stay and will buy the new products the company puts out.

Lets be honest, what they are doing is going to mobile where it's much easier to do this predatory stuff. In the console/pc market, this stuff has consequences. The communities are more vocal.

[Sondrelk]

Of course, I'm not saying they would do a good job at it, but it's fun to speculate how their philosophies would be imposed on the game if they had that power.

A game director doesn't get into the minutiae of game design. Their task is to give a broad direction to the team and carefully weigh the amount of resources an idea would require to execute against the benefit it has to the health of the game.

Like BfA poured a considerable amount of resources in Warfronts and Island Expeditions, these were major features announced at Blizzcon. Both got dropped in SL giving the impression that these didn't amount to the reception Blizzard was hoping for.

In a further abstraction Warfront was clearly meant to be a PvE battleground whereas the Island Expeditions were the first steps towards procedural content that then evolved into Thorghast. And it makes sense, self-generating content is the holy grail for Blizzard. Something that keeps going on low maintenance.

Bellular has been encouraging procedural content for years now (alongside his contrived plot theories). So I expect him as a game director would push this even further and an expansion by him would see less raid content, but more procedural experiments.

That is true. Though I do feel that even with only broad directions you are still likely to fall into serious pitfalls.

Warfronts as PvE battlegrounds is a wonderful idea in practice, and I faintly remember being excited for them before BfA as well. The issue there simply ended up being that engaging with players is different from engaging with NPCs, especially with a size of 30 players.

Same with Islands where the idea likely was to reuse assets to create large amounts of procedurally generated content. The issue in that case being that the timer meant that there was no way of simply enjoying the content ar your own pace.


I imagine that streamers would realize similar pitfalls as well. A blanket removal of systems might be intended to prevent burnout, but could end up backfiring if players end up having no incentive to log on outside raids.
Making Mythic raids 15 players or even lower might lead to the raiding scene collapsing because of how much the difficulty fluctuates with it.


It is an interesting though experiment though. I certainly know what direction I would try to steer the game. And I have no doubt many players would be against my vision of the game.