I have seen the disappointment of the Nzoth ending cut-scene. I agree Nyalotha deserves more. I was reading people’s complaints and agreeing with them, but then I read someone say “Ion needs to be fired.” Then 30 people had liked that response.
Really…
You think Ion pushed for an August release date for BfA? I bet Ion would have loved to push back the release and iterate on the Azerite system. Continue with the unofficial, Blizzard moto: “we will release it when it is ready.”
For years at panels, Ion has answered questions about WoW better than anyone. Then people start complaining about his lawyer speak? Complaining about his qualifying “that being said, …”
WoW is complex. It is not checkers; what makes WoW fun is more like chess. Open ended questions about the game and dev decisions can not be answered in the size of a tweet. Ion is the best thing for WoW.
The villain is Activision.
Business executives pushing for more profit. Look what has being happening to the entire game industry in the last 3-5 years: micro-transactions and unfinished, underdeveloped games.
Activision probably became more involved during the disappointment of WoD. Using time travel to have a love story of Orc Lore? I think Metzen pushed that decision and got to spend more time with family because of it. I love the guy and all the developers, but WoD was a mistake. And, I think it invited Activision executives to oversee and pressure WoW leadership.
I think everyone thought the BfA release was too soon. I think it was the first WoW expac that I thought, “Wow, that seems fast.” The beta testing was very different than Legion’s, and Azerite had like two or three holes to fill.
Ion is just an easy target, and possibly an easy troll rage-bait.
For anyone who says Ion should be fired, then suggest a replacement and give reasons why they would be better than Ion. Then explain how Activision oversight is not the real problem.
TLDR: learn to read and have some patience. Not every topic and thought fits into a tweet size nugget.
[ FORUM MODERATOR NOTE: I have edited the title of this thread. Please note, calling out a specific dev/name in a thread title is against the forum code of conduct ]
You love Ion… I get that.
Well he is the representative,
so it’s kinda inevitable.
Tell me who’s in charge or who’s making the final decision. I’ll blame them.
I mean, even if it’s not really targeted at Ion. I don’t feel you need to name call him or it’s not gonna stay long on the forum basicly because you bring attention mainly on him even if I don’t think that’s what you want to do.
It’s also kinda a meme to dislike Ion, but he’s kinda captain of wow ship so who you are gonna blame? Activision? I mean you can but that’s pretty vague. Boby? You’re now talking about just a moneymaker he’s not truly the one developping the games so you can’t really blame him. You can blame him for business/marketing decisions but outside of that? Not much.
Also with most devs not communicating with the public, Ion gets pretty much all the attention. Good or Bad. I don’t think I’m fit to decide if he does a good job or not, but I do hope Shadowlands is a good expansion for him and us.
Blame is different than firing. Ion consistently explains their reasoning behind development decisions. He explained why he wanted the GC inclusion. I understand the desire to increase decision making strategy, but it made the game less fun to play. So, complain to Ion. I am fine with that. SL better be great. Amazing even, since BfA was so bad in so many ways. For now, I trust Ion doing a better job than anyone else I see at Blizzcon to make WoW great again.
Yes He’s a lawyer who somehow became a dev for ulduar and is now a director this in it’s self is a cluster.
He has a sharp legal mind which is good for A-B design but not a creative mind which is how you link A-B in a meaningful way.
Just for future note everytime in one those Vods he says a statement starting with “we feel” he means they did what was the most cost effective basic design for idea they could think of and we got the watered down version.
He is smart and educated. He was obsessed with WoW and was making How To videos in Wrath if I remember correctly.
Again, the reason I started to like him was because of his answers to questions over years of Blizzcons.
Ion only wanted his bonus, but he still has bosses and I heard a while back that in today’s wow Marketing are taking a lot of decisions that are bad for customers but good for business, and although those marketing decisions give them instant money are bad in the long run because they lose player’s loyalty.
So, I’d say is not all Ion’s fault,his bosses demand he listens to marketing and program everything according to marketing wishes.
Feel like this is true. Ion seems like a very logical thinker but not very creative. I’m sure his number crunches are on point but I think director is just not the role he should be in
From what little I know of Ion, (I’ve seen his interviews, and play his game) he seems like a passionate guy who cares about his job? Maybe he hasn’t made WOW as great as it could be but I think he does his best.
Where do you get this idea? Is efficiency a bad thing? I think they put in a decent amount of effort making Warfronts and Islands, but fundamentally they were not fun. Islands is turning into the Tower in SL, so the idea needed a major iteration. It might be good in SL.
I do think Activision pushes for maximum profit and Blizz leadership pushes back for dev time. Hopefully they get the balance right like they did for Legion.
At least BfA tried some ideas, and now we know they were not good. Garrisons were bad, Order Halls were good, Islands and Warfront were bad. Azerite bad but now a bit better.