Comments on Of Teeth and Claws: Blizzard's B Team

I read his post today too - it was excellent. Iron...

2009-07-09T16:43:08.546-04:00

I read his post today too - it was excellent. Ironically though AC2 is probably my least favorite MMORPG ever :) Although the articles can put you on a bit of a downer about the industry (we all think it's fun and games - pardon the pun - when of course it's a tough job like any other) but they are incredibly informative and insightful.

Just a response to your "Feels right" comment. As...

2009-07-09T12:57:30.940-04:00

Just a response to your "Feels right" comment. As far back as the last Blizzcon Jeff Kaplan had mentioned he was working as lead on a new project. So definitely prior to the 3.0 patch they had already switched the lead designer.

@Anon - "disgruntled" former WOW players are usually disgruntled for a reason. Things have changed, and rapidly and often. Sometimes I wonder if that is what put me off and question my desire to play the game.

"...the instances of character balancing were fewe...

2009-07-09T12:20:29.543-04:00

"...the instances of character balancing were fewer and further in between, and the devs solicited (and/or acted on) less direct feedback from the forums...."

I absolutely agree. But you just stated a fact without making an interpretation.

The original quote uses this undisputed fact to suggest that there's now a B team messing it all up. That's where I accuse him off disgrunted-ex-player-ism, because there's simply no justification to make that interpretation. That whole thing about being excited when his class turn came after 6 months: it's selective memory, because many players were outraged that their classes were underpowered in their view, and had to wait so long for a fix.

I also wonder where these "little bugs" that are creeping in all over the place are supposed to be. I also assume, then, that he's suggesting wow 2004 was beautifully and perfectly "little bug" free. Another example of selective memory.

Great article, thanks for finding it. I've been wo...

2009-07-09T12:08:15.781-04:00

Great article, thanks for finding it. I've been wondering what will happen to WoW now that Blizzard's focussed on a second MMO. (Not to mention Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3; they have a lot of unfinished product!).

This rockstar/A-team idea is terrible and pernicious. If you only put your junior / weaker people on the live team, then the live team is going to suck and you'll strangle your $500 million product. I'm more of a break-new-ground kind of engineer myself, mostly because I lack the patience to do the hard work of maintaining and evolving a product. It took two or three hard-earned lessons for me to learn to respect the work of the more mature, productive engineers who could work on the same thing for months, years, polishing and refactoring systems so they could grow and succeed.

I don't think the frequent class tweaks are a sign of developers making mistakes, though. That was a deliberate release schedule shift coming from the top, I believe in response to both player demands and the realities of working on WoW. I can argue both sides about whether it's a good change, but it's not a rookie mistake. The hunter ammo and Savage Defense half-designs are better examples of stuff not working out as well as planned. I don't have enough perspective to know if this is a new trend, though. Early WoW was certainly full of all sorts of flaws too.

MMO projects are so enormously complex, there's very little precedent for anything like their combination of big software systems, huge design problems, social engineering, and new content creation. Certainly not in gaming. I remain in awe of how successful Blizzard has been, I sure wish I understood better how they do it.

@Anon: .... and many current WoW players like to ...

2009-07-09T11:33:48.707-04:00

@Anon:

.... and many current WoW players like to defend the game by attempting to discredit statements/opinions/criticisms on the grounds that the past player MUST have an axe to grind. But we could play this game all day and it will get us no where, right. ;)

Seriously though:

While I agree that there were player complaints to character balance changes in the past, the instances of character balancing were fewer and further in between, and the devs solicited (and/or acted on) less direct feedback from the forums.

Do you dispute this statement? If so, please present your case.

Also note that the author of the article I quote speaks from a position of experience in the gaming industry, which neither I nor (presumably) you have. I do, however, speak from experience then I assert that this "A Team"/"B Team" mentality is present in larger software companies, AND that the effects of it are not vastly different between the gaming industry and other software operations.

I agree absolutely that the most talented develope...

2009-07-09T11:16:01.732-04:00

I agree absolutely that the most talented developers tend to work on new development, while the less talented ones maintain it.

However the second major statement that you say "feels" true simply "feels" like wow bashing cynicysm to me. Not only does it follow a very typical wow bashing model (v common amoung ex players) but it looks to the distant past with rose colored spectacles. "Ahhh.... everything was so sweet when they only changed classes once every 6 months. Now they tweak classes every other day - must be because their worst developers dont know what they're doing..."

Errr excuse me: people complained no end back then too. He's making some random inference for no justified reason (but since it follows the typical disgrunted wow bashing, with fond selective memories of the past, I suspect that's all that motivated the statement. Many ex-wow players who like to take a swing at the game often use this technique)

No worries. I've done that on occasion. The ar...

2009-07-09T11:08:36.117-04:00

No worries. I've done that on occasion.

The article is extremely details, and well worth a read if you have the time. It IS quite lengthy though, so I'll understand if you don't click through.

I must admit that having read the quoted parts in ...

2009-07-09T11:06:51.637-04:00

I must admit that having read the quoted parts in your article I wasn't too impressed and skipped reading the full article.

@Rob: I'm not sure how someone would quantify a 3...

2009-07-09T11:01:52.710-04:00

@Rob:

I'm not sure how someone would quantify a 30% imbalance; might be worth dropping a comment on Eric's blog.

"I mean common.... he talks of 'more and more little mistakes...' and doesn't name a single one. "

Re-read the hunter section - he expands a lot on the little things that go wrong, including stuff like tooltip bugs and such.

Regarding the China fiasco:
The way I understand it (and I may be wrong) is that Blizzard decided to switch their provider from The9 to NetEase, but the gov't approval process (required by Chinese law) has been bogged down..... allegedly in response to a lot of pressure from The9. So Blizzard's kinda stuck until the Chinese gov't decides to grant NetEase a license to operate WoW.

Now - that said, maybe there was a way that Blizzard could have greased the wheels, but it sounds like an unavoidable quagmire.

I do think there is something like an 'underdog-me...

2009-07-09T10:32:16.879-04:00

I do think there is something like an 'underdog-mentality', however I doubt it would cover '30% of imbalance'... (how to measure that anyway?) - people who were more skilled than others would have an even bigger advantage with that class and people who are interested in PvP achievements would naturally play and abuse the class. You can't just say 'Oh well, some people like it easy they will go for Feral, while the hardcore people will just play the underdog-classes'. Just doesn't work that way.

While a lot of it about WoW sounds true and makes sense there is not much proof in it. I mean common.... he talks of 'more and more little mistakes...' and doesn't name a single one. Personally I always thought that frequent changes are a good thing - something that people actually expect from a game they pay $$/month for.

If I wanted to critisize Blizzard and WoW itself I would aim at another spot: Chinas WoW servers have been down for almost 5 weeks now because Blizzard is looking for a new provider with better servers. Seriously, 5 weeks for a serverchange in a major P2P MMORPG in their currently largest market? Do they even plan ahead?

Another point would be the with 3.2 upcoming Tier-9 content: The instance itself will consist of an arena in which players will battle old bossmodels with slightly changed tactics. The Tier-9 itemsets have been designed in a way that classes who wear similar armortypes (e.g. Mage and Priest, both wearing Cloth) look almost the same (except for some colorchanges). But see for yourself..

T9 Plate Sets - DK, Pala & Warrior compared
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QokScg7jLak&feature=player_embedded

T9 Feedback thread
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=9986659437

So all in all I think Blizzard makes far worse mistakes than what has been written above, giving new games like Aion all chances to win some of the older WoW-players for their own new game.

Here's a quote from the T9-feedback-thread: 'It is a disaster,.. AION makes WOW look like it is been drawn by a 12yo.'

My 2 Cents...

Great article, thanks for the link!

2009-07-09T10:20:27.108-04:00

Great article, thanks for the link!

@Anon: I have to admit - as a Druid tank in The B...

2009-07-09T10:00:37.505-04:00

@Anon:

I have to admit - as a Druid tank in The Burning Crusade era of WoW, I loved being considered a subpar tanking class (outside of T4 content) and yet still managing to do a good job of tanking a lot of hard encounters. It made me feel more elite, in some ways.

For reference, I got into the Druid class with no idea how it would play, or even that I would eventually raid - it was my first toon.

Masterful... And yet so appalling. OK so I've nev...

2009-07-09T09:56:34.876-04:00

Masterful... And yet so appalling.

OK so I've never played AC2, but the notion that players with an underpowered class prefer to live (well mostly die) as underdogs doesn't ring very true with me.

Sure, if you know what you're getting into when you roll your class. But most players surely roll a class expecting to have a fair chance at performing on par with other classes?
Not everyone has the time or patience to simply re-roll and re-gear a new char at endgame when they realise they've been shafted...

On the verge to throw a Warhammer-related Bright Wizard fit here, but I'll quit while I'm ahead... :/