Comments on: The Warcraft Live Team’s B Squad http://www.eldergame.com/2009/07/the-warcraft-live-teams-b-squad/ MMO game development Sun, 14 Mar 2010 07:53:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Calusirius http://www.eldergame.com/2009/07/the-warcraft-live-teams-b-squad/comment-page-3/#comment-44412 Calusirius Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:27:17 +0000 http://www.eldergame.com/?p=413#comment-44412 PS On a business note: businesses last as long as their "bread and butter" customer base is happy. When making changes, attracting new clients, etc .. remember to take care of the clients who are the ones who stick with you and whose income you can count on. Blizzard, fyi PS
On a business note: businesses last as long as their “bread and butter” customer base is happy. When making changes, attracting new clients, etc .. remember to take care of the clients who are the ones who stick with you and whose income you can count on. Blizzard, fyi

]]> By: Calusirius http://www.eldergame.com/2009/07/the-warcraft-live-teams-b-squad/comment-page-3/#comment-44409 Calusirius Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:14:58 +0000 http://www.eldergame.com/?p=413#comment-44409 I'm a gamer(1 of the first rl girl's here), this is a rant. B team, maintain wow at the very least. animal/mob npc's stuck in walls & tree's, npc's not working, the quest turn-in npc is no longer there, etc. Make sure what we have works before throwing out all this other junk we don't want or need. And QUIT dumbing down the game!! WoW has dumbed down so badly that the only thing that matters is gear. Skill is non-existent, 1 - 80 in 9 days .. of course they cannot play, so hey ... solution dumb the game down and make armor all important (it should be important, so should Skills, a total package). Now even dweebs watch movies/play bejeweled while raiding, does this tell you something? Yes you hear the dweebs on forums whining about how hard it is, but they don't say they never really learned to play their toon and they are also watching movies/playing bejeweled while doing this. Have you noticed that more WoW clients have been taking VERY long leaves from wow (other games). We come back to see, if maybe, just maybe (please, please, please) WoW got its direction straight again. WoW is rated "Teen", but is getting dumbed down to much less then teen. We (hunters, I have 7 on different servers) don't care about arrows/bullets becoming 1 item. Hunters are different, its part of the package, just like druids ( I have 5 on different servers) carry more then one armor set. We cared more about the pet changes to all being pretty much the same, we understand it takes major code to make a rare (silver elite) pet be different in all the areas wow is now, we whined about it and accepted it had to be. But when the newest raids is so easy that the hardest is being farmed 2 weeks after it opened??? Get over it and do what made WoW great and everyone want to play it. Why? Because THAT is no longer true. My friends and I change to partial wuss armor (except tanks) just to make it interesting. My hunters/druids are all hybrids to make it more fun. We are still with WoW after all these years because we developed friendships and the game was fun, we could brag to each other about defeating XXX and it meant something. Almost every gamer knew the name of the guild that 1st defeated the new boss/raid; now who cares, it means nothing. We are all (us and the newer wusses you are trying to pacify) trying almost any new (and some old) game(s) that comes out to replace wow's new boringness. btw, we are 115 wow players who are looking to leave (think wow dev team, if we are telling you, how many (and did you read trade tuesday?) are just going? Cataclysm better fix this vanilla stuff you've done, because if it is still a wuss game, we're gone. WoW was the best, its pretty sucky now. signed "One of those who never complained, but had enough of YOUR lost direction" I’m a gamer(1 of the first rl girl’s here), this is a rant.
B team, maintain wow at the very least. animal/mob npc’s stuck in walls & tree’s, npc’s not working, the quest turn-in npc is no longer there, etc. Make sure what we have works before throwing out all this other junk we don’t want or need. And QUIT dumbing down the game!!
WoW has dumbed down so badly that the only thing that matters is gear. Skill is non-existent, 1 – 80 in 9 days .. of course they cannot play, so hey … solution dumb the game down and make armor all important (it should be important, so should Skills, a total package). Now even dweebs watch movies/play bejeweled while raiding, does this tell you something? Yes you hear the dweebs on forums whining about how hard it is, but they don’t say they never really learned to play their toon and they are also watching movies/playing bejeweled while doing this. Have you noticed that more WoW clients have been taking VERY long leaves from wow (other games). We come back to see, if maybe, just maybe (please, please, please) WoW got its direction straight again. WoW is rated “Teen”, but is getting dumbed down to much less then teen.
We (hunters, I have 7 on different servers) don’t care about arrows/bullets becoming 1 item. Hunters are different, its part of the package, just like druids ( I have 5 on different servers) carry more then one armor set. We cared more about the pet changes to all being pretty much the same, we understand it takes major code to make a rare (silver elite) pet be different in all the areas wow is now, we whined about it and accepted it had to be. But when the newest raids is so easy that the hardest is being farmed 2 weeks after it opened??? Get over it and do what made WoW great and everyone want to play it. Why? Because THAT is no longer true.
My friends and I change to partial wuss armor (except tanks) just to make it interesting. My hunters/druids are all hybrids to make it more fun. We are still with WoW after all these years because we developed friendships and the game was fun, we could brag to each other about defeating XXX and it meant something. Almost every gamer knew the name of the guild that 1st defeated the new boss/raid; now who cares, it means nothing.
We are all (us and the newer wusses you are trying to pacify) trying almost any new (and some old) game(s) that comes out to replace wow’s new boringness. btw, we are 115 wow players who are looking to leave (think wow dev team, if we are telling you, how many (and did you read trade tuesday?) are just going? Cataclysm better fix this vanilla stuff you’ve done, because if it is still a wuss game, we’re gone. WoW was the best, its pretty sucky now.
signed
“One of those who never complained, but had enough of YOUR lost direction”

]]> By: Quelldrogo http://www.eldergame.com/2009/07/the-warcraft-live-teams-b-squad/comment-page-3/#comment-40048 Quelldrogo Sun, 13 Dec 2009 15:35:18 +0000 http://www.eldergame.com/?p=413#comment-40048 Great job folks, awesome thread and comments. Just a couple things I'd like to add. 1. First time playing Alterac Valley battleground, when the sides could summon the giant elemental and tree bosses, was pretty epic. I wish blizz had put it's resources into more epic BGs. Using tactics and planning in AV premades was incredibly fun. It was the best example of actual "Warcraft". 2. Giving the horde paladins? I'm still wtf over that. Shaman were fucking cool in vanilla WoW. Having differences between the two factions made the game more interesting. Blood elves??? You know, the chicks who would play "ugly" horde races were cool way before the influx of Tiger Beat refugees. 3. Raiding was a lot of fun in Burning Crusade. IMHO the 10/25 WLK heroic thing dims the whole fun factor of learning new fights. Zerg AoE pulling fails... if anything Blizz should have improved/upgraded PvE enemy AI. Make stray mobs run into the next room to call for reinforcements, spread out, use cover, basic combat tactics and scripting, etc. 4. WoW would have been vastly better without arenas. If they spent development money on more varied and interesting BG maps, and tied them into a dynamic world where BG wins translated into domination of PvE zones, it would have made for a more interesting story environment. 5. The chase for dollars with the name changes, transfers, faction changes, etc... well it just encourages the internet+anonymity=dickwad phenomenon. I think there is something to be said for being able to keep a friends/ignore list intact in regards to building community. 6. The whole Death Knight thing is like the male version of tween fantasy. We all knew that kid who would draw DKs back in 8th grade all over his notebooks. Seriously, if you really want to be a fucking lich maybe enable control of bad guy bosses like I've heard is possible in LOTR online. Open up a can of whup-ass on all the players nearby and get your rocks that way. But a player class who is a lich?... "Tomb of Horrors" anyone? Anyways, thanks for listening to the rant of an old paper-n-dice D&D kid. It's threads like this that give me hope for a better future. Wootzers. Great job folks, awesome thread and comments. Just a couple things I’d like to add.

1. First time playing Alterac Valley battleground, when the sides could summon the giant elemental and tree bosses, was pretty epic. I wish blizz had put it’s resources into more epic BGs. Using tactics and planning in AV premades was incredibly fun. It was the best example of actual “Warcraft”.

2. Giving the horde paladins? I’m still wtf over that. Shaman were fucking cool in vanilla WoW. Having differences between the two factions made the game more interesting. Blood elves??? You know, the chicks who would play “ugly” horde races were cool way before the influx of Tiger Beat refugees.

3. Raiding was a lot of fun in Burning Crusade. IMHO the 10/25 WLK heroic thing dims the whole fun factor of learning new fights. Zerg AoE pulling fails… if anything Blizz should have improved/upgraded PvE enemy AI. Make stray mobs run into the next room to call for reinforcements, spread out, use cover, basic combat tactics and scripting, etc.

4. WoW would have been vastly better without arenas. If they spent development money on more varied and interesting BG maps, and tied them into a dynamic world where BG wins translated into domination of PvE zones, it would have made for a more interesting story environment.

5. The chase for dollars with the name changes, transfers, faction changes, etc… well it just encourages the internet+anonymity=dickwad phenomenon. I think there is something to be said for being able to keep a friends/ignore list intact in regards to building community.

6. The whole Death Knight thing is like the male version of tween fantasy. We all knew that kid who would draw DKs back in 8th grade all over his notebooks. Seriously, if you really want to be a fucking lich maybe enable control of bad guy bosses like I’ve heard is possible in LOTR online. Open up a can of whup-ass on all the players nearby and get your rocks that way. But a player class who is a lich?… “Tomb of Horrors” anyone?

Anyways, thanks for listening to the rant of an old paper-n-dice D&D kid. It’s threads like this that give me hope for a better future. Wootzers.

]]> By: PeterJ http://www.eldergame.com/2009/07/the-warcraft-live-teams-b-squad/comment-page-3/#comment-39288 PeterJ Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:10:15 +0000 http://www.eldergame.com/?p=413#comment-39288 The assessment that a fundamental shift in project steering for WoW development have occured seems obviously clear after reading this article. The effects of this change of viewpoint, focus and development team management is probably not as clear cut as you,Eric, write in this article. You bring out good points and observations regarding the nature of how change is implemented in the game but I think your conclusions are based on too little evidence to support your specific opinions. If you reread your article and some of the comments you might be able to admit that, while you put in the caveat "this might not be a bad thing", your basic asumption from the beginning was the new team is not only doing something differently but also doing it worse or under poor guidance. The price of adaptability might be lack of coherency but it's not a given and all evidence must not point towards a lack of control. Ghostcrawlers forum posts for all their strengths and flaws doesn't not equate reigns having been cut lose from the WoW horse. He is one developer, hardly a stastical significance by himself. One Austrian basement family doesn't imply a fundamental change to Austrian legal system. (hmm, did I just equate GC with Fritzl?) Changes put out at a quicker pace does not equate more proverbial lint on the floor. Maybe the reason you only see lint is because they removed the dead cow carcasses that used to litter the floor? The errors and problems so often associated with any ingame change of earlier WoW years are minor and often cosmetical in nature these days. Tooltips slighty asqew is nothing compared to diseases killing entire towns or servers down for a day or two that were not uncommon a few years back. Yes the focus has changed and yes this seems indicative of shift in management. But to go as far as your analysis might be a bit bold and apparently a bit controversial. To state that the loss of control is typical and it's causing myopic views seems more of a projection than the given analysis of the situation. Unless you are privy to information from inside WoW development we aren't? But I'll give you that, the article is a hell of a lot more interesting with the conjecture and the chance of you being an Cassandra by crying foul without "watching the tape" might be worth it. Conjecture doesn't need to be wrong. The assessment that a fundamental shift in project steering for WoW development have occured seems obviously clear after reading this article. The effects of this change of viewpoint, focus and development team management is probably not as clear cut as you,Eric, write in this article. You bring out good points and observations regarding the nature of how change is implemented in the game but I think your conclusions are based on too little evidence to support your specific opinions.

If you reread your article and some of the comments you might be able to admit that, while you put in the caveat “this might not be a bad thing”, your basic asumption from the beginning was the new team is not only doing something differently but also doing it worse or under poor guidance. The price of adaptability might be lack of coherency but it’s not a given and all evidence must not point towards a lack of control. Ghostcrawlers forum posts for all their strengths and flaws doesn’t not equate reigns having been cut lose from the WoW horse. He is one developer, hardly a stastical significance by himself. One Austrian basement family doesn’t imply a fundamental change to Austrian legal system. (hmm, did I just equate GC with Fritzl?)

Changes put out at a quicker pace does not equate more proverbial lint on the floor. Maybe the reason you only see lint is because they removed the dead cow carcasses that used to litter the floor? The errors and problems so often associated with any ingame change of earlier WoW years are minor and often cosmetical in nature these days. Tooltips slighty asqew is nothing compared to diseases killing entire towns or servers down for a day or two that were not uncommon a few years back.

Yes the focus has changed and yes this seems indicative of shift in management. But to go as far as your analysis might be a bit bold and apparently a bit controversial. To state that the loss of control is typical and it’s causing myopic views seems more of a projection than the given analysis of the situation. Unless you are privy to information from inside WoW development we aren’t?
But I’ll give you that, the article is a hell of a lot more interesting with the conjecture and the chance of you being an Cassandra by crying foul without “watching the tape” might be worth it. Conjecture doesn’t need to be wrong.

]]> By: Leveling Ret http://www.eldergame.com/2009/07/the-warcraft-live-teams-b-squad/comment-page-3/#comment-36319 Leveling Ret Sat, 31 Oct 2009 08:59:42 +0000 http://www.eldergame.com/?p=413#comment-36319 This is an important post, everything is well put and to the point. We need more people to come forth and voice there views on this subject. I have played wow for close to five years now, and i have played every class at endgame. My recent main was a Feral Druid who was my first "Hardcore Raider" and we as a guild progressed very well (Uludar 25 hardmodes). Back to the topic, having played this game for so long i have noticed alot of the things mentioned in this post, such as hunter ammo (76 alt). I love this game but reciently (like the last year lats say) things changed, the love of wow had diminished like something is missing. Back in Vanilla when it was hard to obtain an epic item, the game felt WORTH playing, worth farming that instance for the one epic in there. Now they give away epics for nothing, Heroic in BC were hard, and it was a treat to clear one. Now tho... Soloing heroics your level is possible, to me this is over the top. Where did the developers go wrong? Itemization? Spells/Skills? No they went wrong with the team, "the B team" (Not saying anything about you guys i know your role is important and i support you). Its just that nothing feels right anymore, the game feels fast paced and boring. Now like i said earlier i am a diehard, this game is a part of my life, so i am excited about Catcalysm. But am i in for the dissapointment of WoTLK, or the excitment of Vanilla/BC? I hope this expansion brings back the love of WoW. This is an important post, everything is well put and to the point. We need more people to come forth and voice there views on this subject.

I have played wow for close to five years now, and i have played every class at endgame. My recent main was a Feral Druid who was my first “Hardcore Raider” and we as a guild progressed very well (Uludar 25 hardmodes).

Back to the topic, having played this game for so long i have noticed alot of the things mentioned in this post, such as hunter ammo (76 alt). I love this game but reciently (like the last year lats say) things changed, the love of wow had diminished like something is missing. Back in Vanilla when it was hard to obtain an epic item, the game felt WORTH playing, worth farming that instance for the one epic in there. Now they give away epics for nothing, Heroic in BC were hard, and it was a treat to clear one. Now tho… Soloing heroics your level is possible, to me this is over the top. Where did the developers go wrong? Itemization? Spells/Skills? No they went wrong with the team, “the B team” (Not saying anything about you guys i know your role is important and i support you). Its just that nothing feels right anymore, the game feels fast paced and boring. Now like i said earlier i am a diehard, this game is a part of my life, so i am excited about Catcalysm. But am i in for the dissapointment of WoTLK, or the excitment of Vanilla/BC? I hope this expansion brings back the love of WoW.

]]> By: Justin Q http://www.eldergame.com/2009/07/the-warcraft-live-teams-b-squad/comment-page-3/#comment-32093 Justin Q Wed, 23 Sep 2009 03:58:31 +0000 http://www.eldergame.com/?p=413#comment-32093 Well said Eric. Well said Eric.

]]> By: Paul http://www.eldergame.com/2009/07/the-warcraft-live-teams-b-squad/comment-page-3/#comment-31647 Paul Sat, 19 Sep 2009 03:32:40 +0000 http://www.eldergame.com/?p=413#comment-31647 These comments leave out one of the biggest screwups in WotLK: gear inflation has zoomed out of control. Street has admitted this is because they hadn't planned hard modes when planning for the expansion, and when they changed the plans to include them the inflated gear they were to drop had a devastating cascade effect on later content. What this means is that right now, for most raiders who don't do hard modes, the relevant raid content consists of a single room with five encounters in it. Gear from Ulduar normal modes is DE fodder now. This and the other problems (those mentioned earlier in the article and replies, and others) have led me recently to cancel my WoW account. I don't plan to return (or to get suckered into playing any future Blizzard MMO). These comments leave out one of the biggest screwups in WotLK: gear inflation has zoomed out of control. Street has admitted this is because they hadn’t planned hard modes when planning for the expansion, and when they changed the plans to include them the inflated gear they were to drop had a devastating cascade effect on later content. What this means is that right now, for most raiders who don’t do hard modes, the relevant raid content consists of a single room with five encounters in it. Gear from Ulduar normal modes is DE fodder now.

This and the other problems (those mentioned earlier in the article and replies, and others) have led me recently to cancel my WoW account. I don’t plan to return (or to get suckered into playing any future Blizzard MMO).

]]> By: WoW: The B Squad | geek listed http://www.eldergame.com/2009/07/the-warcraft-live-teams-b-squad/comment-page-3/#comment-30901 WoW: The B Squad | geek listed Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:24:02 +0000 http://www.eldergame.com/?p=413#comment-30901 [...] recently came across an article on Elder Game regarding World of Warcraft and how the many of Blizzard’s employees had shifted onto new [...] [...] recently came across an article on Elder Game regarding World of Warcraft and how the many of Blizzard’s employees had shifted onto new [...]

]]> By: The truth about WoW and the ‘B Squad’ « Welcome to Spinksville! http://www.eldergame.com/2009/07/the-warcraft-live-teams-b-squad/comment-page-3/#comment-30505 The truth about WoW and the ‘B Squad’ « Welcome to Spinksville! Sat, 05 Sep 2009 05:04:58 +0000 http://www.eldergame.com/?p=413#comment-30505 [...] truth about WoW and the ‘B Squad’ Back in July, Eric@Elder Game posted a thought provoking article about how development teams had been organised at Turbine. They had a development team (A Team) and [...] [...] truth about WoW and the ‘B Squad’ Back in July, Eric@Elder Game posted a thought provoking article about how development teams had been organised at Turbine. They had a development team (A Team) and [...]

]]> By: Xenovore http://www.eldergame.com/2009/07/the-warcraft-live-teams-b-squad/comment-page-3/#comment-30463 Xenovore Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:26:53 +0000 http://www.eldergame.com/?p=413#comment-30463 Thanks for an interesting and insightful article, Eric. As someone who's played WoW from release, I have to wholeheartedly agree. There are just so many little things now (described as "lint", but I think "splinters" or "broken glass" would be more accurate) that A) didn't need fixing (e.g. hunter ammo), or B) are obviously just the whims of designers/artists on the team (e.g. the "I didn't like the old druid models..." sentiment), or C) Overlooked/dismissed as unimportant (e.g. mismatched tooltips and the like). From my point of view, the primary reason the B Team can only be described as "Epic Fail" right now: In spite of all their hard work, all the constant tweaking and patching, they continue to miss the point: They should be making the game more fun to play, but ultimately the game is just not more fun to play! Certainly most of the more recent changes aren't more fun; I'd consider them to be more like "distractions" than actual fun. Achievements? Distraction. ToC? Distraction. New druid models? Distraction... It's 95% smoke and mirrors anymore, "You WILL continue to play OUR game and you WILL like it because... Look, here some new stuff... and it's super-neato fun! Because WE say it's fun!" =P Thanks for an interesting and insightful article, Eric. As someone who’s played WoW from release, I have to wholeheartedly agree. There are just so many little things now (described as “lint”, but I think “splinters” or “broken glass” would be more accurate) that A) didn’t need fixing (e.g. hunter ammo), or B) are obviously just the whims of designers/artists on the team (e.g. the “I didn’t like the old druid models…” sentiment), or C) Overlooked/dismissed as unimportant (e.g. mismatched tooltips and the like).

From my point of view, the primary reason the B Team can only be described as “Epic Fail” right now: In spite of all their hard work, all the constant tweaking and patching, they continue to miss the point: They should be making the game more fun to play, but ultimately the game is just not more fun to play!

Certainly most of the more recent changes aren’t more fun; I’d consider them to be more like “distractions” than actual fun. Achievements? Distraction. ToC? Distraction. New druid models? Distraction… It’s 95% smoke and mirrors anymore, “You WILL continue to play OUR game and you WILL like it because… Look, here some new stuff… and it’s super-neato fun! Because WE say it’s fun!” =P

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