I see a lot of people judging pretty harshly while never being a position of leadership themselves for Game Development or a role inside of a video game company. Not pretending I know everyone's job titles but pretty sure a lot of people have never been in those types of positions before. Ion is amazing. He doesn't hide himself away like a lot of lead developers would. He engages with people on the forums and on Twitter. He does his best. Give him a little more credit. People may say he is "ruining the game," but I highly doubt you could make it "better" and if you feel as though you can, why don't you all apply to work at Blizzard? Do something. Help change the game if you think someone is ruining it. Take that step and initiative instead of moaning and groaning on the forums.
He's indeed very open about himself and his ambitions and fears.I think he and the team are doing a good job on the ever more difficult task of keeping an 14y old game alive and interesting to an ever broader public.Man 14y thats 25% of my life ;) I guess a lot of players weren't even born when it first came out ....The game has evolved and got so much more aspects. You got roleplayers, collectors, raiders, pvp, mytic+, petbattlers and of course people like me wo want it al to be like some holidaytrip ;)I think beside some startup bugs, they did a good job and delivered an at least fantastic looking new xpac.Looking forward to the journey.For the critics, watch and think about that small anecdote about balancing death nights ;)Another thing about openess they are listening to the community a lot lately, every Q&A they are telling us "give us constructive feedback and we'll look into it".
Oh, so he is the reason why Wow sucks donkey %^&* now.When is he getting fired?
Something most people can't understand is that part of greek parenting is teaching your children the myths of ancient Greece. Every greek is addicted to epic games like wow since childhood :)
This was a good talk. I enjoyed hearing about Ion's progression from being a raider and a player to realizing he was crossing that threshold to fully become a developer. I was surprised to hear him talking openly about his own uncertainty and insecurities, especially as he shifted responsibilities and realized that it was easier for him to get subpar content into the game since he didn't need to go through the usual channels as before he became a lead. It's obvious he's passionate about the game and wants to create a good experience for everyone, and that he still vividly remembers all the time he spent raiding and exploring and all the experiences he had. I knew he started as a player, but I didn't know much more than that, and his raiding stories were entertaining to listen to.
Sounds like after reading this that Ion is not making a ton of decisions per say but instead running the group that does. I get the impression he is trying to use the groups overall experience to make the best game possible. So far I have enjoyed this expansion more than the others. The story telling and overall flow feels really well thought out. Auto-accept looking for group is still an issue per say as now I am dealing with addons auto spamming me for invites instead of me going to find groups. Blizzard needs to figure out a better experience for this. I agree though you really only need groups for the larger world mobs and the others can be done solo.
Blizzard's biggest flaw was they had no guts against their nagging communities (most of them are alliance player-base with their offended bum and impossible demands such as "gief us high elves"). Ion certainly stop giving damn about playerbase nags and instead focused on what's best for the game. Legion was the first game where EVERY SPEC was viable. It flooded with contents yet some people will always nag and Ion clearly gave no damn about them. Such as "why nightbornes are horde?", "Sylvanas not my warchief". Legion wasn't flaw-less, artifact and legion legendary system were questionable. Yet it still brought a lot of quality of life changes such as m+, leveling scales etc.I always thought Ion have marketing background. Because his marketing policies were splendid. A lot of people saying BFA was fastest sold out because of allied races. No, that was pre-order. BFA had its most sells after/during launch. Pre-patch and sillithus storyline created a big hype which is a good marketing. Hate him as much as you want but clearly he've revived the game. All those wrath whinners stopped playing wrath after a year long ICC but legion always had good flow of subscription. Antorus was a easy raid so most of the hardcore people finished it within January, but people didn't experienced content draught because of Mage tower, prestige rewards etc. Ion created the biggest hype for Warcraft which even the movie failed to make.
Get rid of this guy already. It's obvious Activision wanted somebody that could BS their way out of anything and try and redirect bad press/feedback away from the game, so they hired some sleazy corporate attorney that makes a living out of talking BS.
If you hate someone for the decisions they have made regarding the development of a video game, let alone a fairly mainstream one like WoW, then there's something wrong with you. He could have driven the game into the ground (in a sense that's far more accurate than could ever be honestly said about how WoW is doing*) and it would still be ridiculous to hate him as much as some of you hate Ion.* If you think WoW has been driven into the ground, then you don't understand what that phrase means. It has nothing to do with whether YOU like it any more -- and if you're still playing it, yourself, then your attitude makes even less sense. Next, why don't you tell us about how a massively successful game with tons of active subscribers is "dead."
The way you guys rant is very revealing. Let me just snip one down to the most silly bit:
Loved it. Worth watching
Ion needs to be removed. Removed
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
What I really don't understand after reading al this is what are all these whiners still doing here; Weeeh he ruined everything, Waaah get him fired, bleeeh he's just a legal marketing spokesman etc.Man its just a game...... get a live don't play it if you don't like it ! There are millions of other and in your opinions better games so beat it and leave us enjoying the game and stop your whining.... Hey stil here, well it can't be that bad as you 're telling us it is !Happy Wowing