That's the downside of the strengths and weakness idea. Alternatively, if Ion does a poor job of communicating the vision, then even genius devs won’t be able to deliver.
Lately, Ion has also done a lot of magazine and fan site interviews, where the interaction is 1:1 in a more protected state – a professional journalist isn’t going to come into an interview and ask the kinds of questions a forum-goer would.My assessment of Ion is thus – I think, somewhat due to projection and filling out what I know of him by using interactions I’ve had and witnessed, is that he is passionate about WoW and wants what he believes is best for the game. The two guys that talked about Island Excursions talked about it with a great passion, and it probably could have been a great feature, but when they linked it to the necklace as a weekly must do with minimal rewards initially it fell flat for me. However, I can readily see that Ion still plays the game, and in a weird sort of way, that is more reassuring to me than a lot of things are. Everyone has a mobility cooldown, everyone has a full AoE rotation, everyone has the same single target behavior.Good summary of the "other side". Nerfs followed, and by the time Wrath of the Lich King was in development, Ion was a member of the WoW team, working on encounter design.Ion was responsible as a designer and later the lead encounter designer for some of WoW’s most memorable dungeon and raid fights – some stinkers, as well, but largely the increases in mechanical depth were started under his watch. He still plays, so I wish he’d let more of that side out when discussing the game – I think it would make up a lot of the perceived gaps in his job as game director.My question is: where IS Ion?
My guess here, based on the “general quality” of BfA, is that it’s a combination of both, with a heavier weight on Ion. His ascendance through Blizzard and the WoW team is one of the weirder stories after WoW’s release. It was about 10 months after the community had come to this same conclusion and been loudly pushing Blizzard to restore things, but late is better than never, I suppose. I would like to think that if Bobby Kotick didn’t feel a need to stockpile an unearned horde of wealth, Ion would be able to make the WoW he wants, and as someone who raids, I would like to see that game (if you don’t raid, I’m not sure how that would go and it might not be great for you, so maybe sorry?). In Legion, it was fine for me mostly, although Tomb of Sargeras was awful, but BfA has lowered the bar enough across the board that it exacerbates the worsening raid design.My hope is that BfA is a good trial by fire and 9.0 on the other side is great for it – but I’m not sure I’m counting on that being the case just yet.I do think he has a tough job of being the one between corporate wants and designers ideas.
It seems, to me, that he as gotten super quiet. Commentaire de catspats31 In WotLK, he will return in Zul'Drak, where he will be a part of the "Ring of Blood" style quest chain at the Ampitheater of Anguish. As a WoW player, I feel disappointed in the work he’s done and want him to do better work – even though I am certain he didn’t personally design the content and systems that have irritated me so, he had to sign off on them at some point.As one of those readers who mostly writes comments when they disagree with something, I’m sorry for putting pressure on you.As for Ion, I’m pretty much on the same note. In a way, clearing the path for classic actually does this better – Classic will, like it or not, inflate MAU numbers substantially because of how long it will take to accomplish many tasks in the game.However, most of this last paragraph is projection, because having had an actual conversation with the guy, I don’t think that he is some malevolent force that is ruining “my” game.
It's a very interesting read. Ion often speaks in more protected venues – usually one way. There are always people that do well in a one on one that are not held to a script. Azerite armor was a gamble that ultimately failed hard, and the systems tied to it were perceived as worse for it.