Exclusive Interview With Ghostcrawler!

posted 2010/06/13 at 2:01 AM by Malgayne

Ghostcrawleryour feedbackPlease note:Malgayne: Okay! So the one question that everybody asked over and over and over again, and got requoted half a dozen times, is—people seem to feel like trying to balance PvE with PvP is working to the detriment of both. And there seems to be a lot of pressure from the people I was talking to, who were asking to have the PvP and the PvE abilities sort of "subdivided", so that it has one effect when you use it on a player, and one effect when you use it on a mob. That doesn't seem to be something that you guys are interested in doing. Can you talk a little bit about why that might be?Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: Or websites.Ghostcrawler:alsoMalgayne: But that's a nightmare for you, rather than for the players?Ghostcrawler:wantMalgayne: And make it easier for you guys to make changes on the fly?Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: Or can't do it in a stable—Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: And for PvE and PvP skills to transfer, at least to a certain degree?Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: Yeah, I can understand that. What else have we got here...oh! Something that a lot of people have been asking about—and maybe you know the answer to this, maybe you don't, but—what's going to happen to the quest-based achievements when Cataclysm resets all the quests? Things like Loremaster of...Eastern Kingdoms, or whatever—Ghostcrawler:thinklittleMalgayne: Yeah, I can imagine. A lot of people asked me about professions. There seems to be a lot of feeling that levelling a profession to max only really got you, maybe either a really nice vanity item, or maybe one key piece of gear for raiding but that was it. And most people were picking them for the single-slot bonuses that the professions grant. Do you prefer it this way, or are you planning on making changes to it in Cataclysm?Ghostcrawler:funMalgayne: I remember. For me it was the Spidersilk Boots.Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: *laughs*Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: So making the same item over and over, you might get something better?Ghostcrawler:Darkmoon Card: GreatnessMalgayne: What about making profession gear that's tradable to other—like BoE profession gear, what's the "slot" that you envision that taking up?Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: Lots and lots of people were asking about raising the character limit per server.Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: That's a very common question, especially since you've got twelve races now instead of ten, but only ten slots.Ghostcrawler:sayreallyMalgayne: I know one person who managed to complete her goal—one of the developers on the Wowhead team (This would be PoeticDragon, for those following along) has completed her goal of having a level 80 character of every class.Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: She has it on her profile on the website, written up as though it were an achievement.Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: Is that something that you guys are trying to move towards? Cross-account achievements?Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: Like the guild achievements.Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: I had one question—only one person asked it, but I found it very moving so I'm repeating this one—Because you get all these questions about "What are you going to do about this?" "How are you going to implement—" etcetera. I'd like to know what you personally, as a gamer rather than as a Blizzard employee, would really like to see in the game.Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: If you were sitting in this chair, what's the question you would most want to hear the answer to? *laughs*Ghostcrawler:inMalgayne: "You mean you're Alliance? What?!"Ghostcrawler:that'scan'tMalgayne: Yeah. Having random dungeons and such is one thing, but it really helps to be able to like, pick somebody—even from another server—to be able to play with.Ghostcrawler:ShadowmourneMalgayne: Let's see, what else do I have here...oh, okay—this is my personal question, because I do a lot of community stuff. It feels like Blizzard sort of...changed their community-level PR approach a lot when you started posting on the forums.Ghostcrawler:becauseMalgayne: Well that's part of what I wanted to ask about! Like, whose idea was that? Was it a plan or did it just sort of start happening? Do you feel like it was a success, or has it become a part of your day that you're just like, "Oh god, now I have to argue with the forum trolls again"?Ghostcrawler:askquietMalgayne: I know you guys are in different departments. What sort of a relationship do you have with the regular community team?Ghostcrawler:postMalgayne: Well I've caught a couple of usernames in our database which are registered to @blizzard.com email accounts, and I've looked at them and gone "Aww...they're never posting!" I even have a special "VIP" account that I can flag people as, and we originally made it for you guys, but nobody's ever used it—so now we're using it for other websites, and other people that we're talking with.Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: So one more question, and this is probably the single most frequently asked question on all of the forums, across Facebook and Twitter and all the different places I asked and that's, um...where's our moose?Ghostcrawler:Grizzly HillsMalgayne: Yeah, it's a shame.Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: *laughs*Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: Well, it depends on whether it'd be a pet or a mount.Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: Or possibly a new hunter pet. Depending on how you did it. You could get some really interesting moose abilities.Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: You couldn't just throw it in there.Ghostcrawler:Malgayne: Maybe a TCG item or something.Ghostcrawler:

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Comment by jh443 We don't ever want that (crafted) gear to be best in slot, at least not for very long. I mean, there are some exceptions, like Darkmoon Card: Greatness and stuff like that, but overall we don't want the two-handed DPS guy to feel like, "Well, gotta be blacksmith to make my sword, otherwise I just won't be competitive." Cause like I said, you're just taking the option away from players.Comment by Faolchu I dunno I was expecting some serious Q&A but those questions were nothing like the ones I was expecting. Some questions and probing about cata would've been nice, most of the questions seemed to be related more to people complaining about stuff.

Sounds like you enjoyed talking to him which made the interview enjoyable to read just ask the interesting questions rather than the bland majority crowd ones next time :|. Comment by Nightlydust One day, without any preemptive warning, every character should find a moose mount in their mailbox...Comment by etype55 Like I said, we're geeks. Wouldn't you be nervous if you were meeting Ghostcrawler?Comment by jershsmersh I'm now thoroughly convinced that the people who write the code for this game are just bad, unimaginative, and terrible at this job.
And we just think the idea of seeing Rend with a tooltip that says "In PvE, does this. In PvP, also...slows you, or does totally different things", it gets to be really hard to remember.Guild Warssuper awesome talentxComment by Heckler Not at all, I'd take the opportunity to tell him exactly what I think. He's just another dork that made the right contacts, nothing more, nothing less and certainly nothing special.Comment by Rispetto Much obliged for you posting this interview, I love reading the developer's view point in the game.
One thing I think Blizzard should do is steal EVE Online's idea of having a 'council' made up of strictly professional players. Every few months the administrative staff of EVE pays for this 'Council' (full round trips, free food, hotels etc) to come visit them in Greenland, where they discuss things such as balancing, new features etc (just things they think need to be changed). I think it's worked very well for them.
I understand that the developers rely on forums (mainly) for inside view of the gamers, and I'm not saying that's a bad thing, and hell probably paying for that council round trip would be a bit of a kidney shot (which procs 'miss, variable 100%' and punchs them in the wallet) but having that gaming community have a direct impact on the game could be a large improvement to the way things are with the developing community of WoW.
Just an idea, though I doubt anybody from WoW would ever read this :S

Edit: ILY GHOSTCRAWLER<3333 Comment by Mulgrim WHAT ABOUT GAMON! Comment by jershsmersh "They did it by being a game that even idiots could appreciate."

Yea which is why they've been dumbing down the game since wrath hit. Easy free epics for everyone!
Cata seems to be taking this even further..Removing stats on gear because they're too "complex." I find it extremely condescending that the people that have made the game what it is today are viewed as too dumb to get complex stats. WoW was an amazing game. It has been overrun but idiots and trolls and that is what you get when you dumb down a game. You take away all the flavor for a game or what attracted people to it in the first place and it forces people to look elsewhere for their gaming needs. The proposed changes have me seriously considering whether or not cata is for me. Somethings in cata are cool I love the idea of azeroth getting a re-work I miss questing there, but other things blow my mind which I won't get into right now. I would LOVE to see more complexity in the game. I would love to see more diversity in spec choices, make them all viable options.

STOP the fotm spec BS! Blizzard has an opportunity to correct things and in doing so keeping the diehards that have been here since day 1. Unless they don't care about the diehards since 9 million retards are here now. The landscape of the game is not what it once was. Too many 10 yr olds running their mouths, ninja'ing loot, just overall being idiots or just plain sucking at whatever class the happen to choose. The ptrs showed me that. It wasn't people testing out the new features or people really there to dissect the patch, but people who have 7 level 25s and have never seen the inside of any raid, or even level 80s but fail so hard at raiding that they just make premades so they can run raids that have been around for 2 freaking years, since they can't on their respective live servers. Why the heck would anyone NEED to run naxx or ulduar on the ptrs? Those are the kinds of people playing these days.

Anyway just my rant, I know nothing will change the game will just be continually destroyed until all you have left are 50 million drooling, helmet wearing tards who can't understand "complex" stats. Spare us the heartache and just include coloring books in the game packaging. The tards won't ever get around to playing the game. Then you won't have to remove "complex" stats.

If retarded people play and they pay for the game with the ssi check they get, does that count as a government bailout? Comment by Mulgrim On the PvP/PvE ability stuff...

Other games have managed it without much trouble. EQ2 had a seperate panel you could click to to see PvP effects. It would be simple enough to make an option in the Features menu to allow people interested in PvP to see that information. Comment by etype55 Not at all, I'd take the opportunity to tell him exactly what I think. He's just another dork that made the right contacts, nothing more, nothing less and certainly nothing special.Comment by nickthegrrr Don't you guys ever SHUT UP?

I'm trying to read an interview that I ENJOYED reading, just so I could read the comments, go through a few interesting ones, and just find people flaming eachother.

Seriously. If you guys aren't going to be nice, go somewhere else or don't post. I don't want to waste my time or anyone else's.

On a more topic-related note: Imagine. An upgradable camel. I'll let you do the rest of the thinking.

Upgradable. Camel. Comment by Rilgon but on the other hand I think we've done pretty well—ass.Comment by VSUReaper Great interview. I kinda wish the whole pve vs pvp question wasnt asked b/c its all been explained before during the Wrath Beta, and before that as well I'm sure.

I really wish the question would have been asked in regards to gear and the theme they will take in Cata and the role of some of the major lore figures will be playing. Comment by xDeathSwitchx ghostcrawler is awesome and the questions that were asked was exactly what i wanted to hear :D Comment by Rilgon Great interview. I kinda wish the whole pve vs pvp question wasnt asked b/c its all been explained before during the Wrath Beta, and before that as well I'm sure.Comment by MrNorthy It was a great interview ;) Really liked the relaxed tone!;)
1 thing i missed from the whole interview was the new Cata Hunter! Should have digged out some nice news about it.

Like how they see the energy useage with alot of defensive abilities fired off, and then when you are going for some dps, all your energy is allready used.... and ofcourse how the steady shot can be used in pvp for gaining more energy... its like, who stands in 1 place to fire off some timed shots in pvp? you rearly got the time to do so ;S

Edit and formated it abit :P wall of text aint nice :s Comment by tachase Very interesting interview. Comment by Treenubbin Loved the interview! :D

They should put in a moose, in just a completely random zone. Like floating on a piece of wood in Thousand Needles. It somehow made it there from Grizzly Hills. And if you kill it, it drops a rare moose mount, like the TLPD.

It will be super rare!

HEY, it could totally work. Comment by Rilgon Or.... you could realize that world PVP is nigh-impossible to balance, has no rewards related to it aside from city raids (which could count as PVP ability-enabled zones for players), and is a really stupid thing to worry about in the grand scheme of things.

Either or.

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