Exclusive Interview With Ghostcrawler!

Live 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 130863This post was from a user who has deleted their account.Comment by 582040This post was from a user who has deleted their account.Comment by MalgayneLike I said, we're geeks. Wouldn't you be nervous if you were meeting Ghostcrawler?Comment by SaintStryfeIf I had his job, solving problems for a video game, budgie, I'd laugh often too.

Nice insight. I am glad we have a guy like him listening to us as much as can be hoped.Comment by 154968TCG Items are NOT cool... (the items are but how you obtain them is crap). :-/Comment by 228383This post was from a user who has deleted their account.Comment by NorolasGhostcrawler is pretty cool :3Comment by BlitzfireOne day, without any preemptive warning, every character should find a moose mount in their mailbox...Comment by gimppywtb mooseComment by RexworthThe character limit per server should be raised. The game has been out for five and a half years now and, having 10 80s on a server isn't that far fetched if you have been playing for that long. I'm tired of having to delete or transfer my alts just so i can make a new one.Comment by 609186This post was from a user who has deleted their account.Comment by AvallenOh, crap. I saw the notice about the interview and I knew I had a question but I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was. And then I forgot about it. And after reading the interview, of course, now I remember.

WHEN, GHOSTCRAWLER, WILL TRAVEL FORM FINALLY BE SWITCHED TO THE STAG FORM IT DESERVES?

EDIT: orororororor, mooseformComment by EvilChookieI'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 126811Wouldn't you be nervous if you were meeting Ghostcrawler?Comment by 615805Nice interview :) i like GC, i remember when he started posting and everyone thought he was a woman..

He is working hard, we should be grateful.Comment by Avallenwhy should you be, he's a human being, just like you.Comment by MalgayneI'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 WarsComment by superfulaI'm now thoroughly convinced that the people who write the code for this game are just bad, unimaginative, and terrible at this job.There's this little known MMO, called Guild WarsComment by AtlonGiant seahorse mount! Yeah!

Anyway, pretty agree with all he saied, the idea of different results for abilities whether they are used on a mob or a player seems just stupid to me aswell.Comment by MalgayneI'm now thoroughly convinced that the people who write the code for this game are just bad, unimaginative, and terrible at this job.There's this little known MMO, called Guild Wars

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