Ghostcrawler to Leave Blizzard Entertainment

World of Warcraft's Lead Systems Designer has announced his decision to leave.

Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, has announced his decision to leave Blizzard Entertainment. World of Warcraft's Lead Systems Designer has bridged the gap between the community and game's developers for six years. In that time he has been stoic in his resolve to provide fair and balanced gameplay for WoW players and will undoubtedly be missed.

I had the pleasure of meeting him at this year's Blizzcon and I can honestly say that he is a very sweet and friendly man, who was more than happy to mingle with fans at all opportunities. I've always admired his ability to absorb the hits of angry players lashing out when their class received what they perceived to be nerfs. When we spoke, albeit briefly at the Wowinsider/Wowhead party, I apologized to him on behalf of the community for all the negativity he's had to endure, to which he smiled kindly and assured me he was fine.

Below is an official post written by Greg on the WoW forums:

"You know that part at the end of raid night when the final boss is dead and you’re done handing out loot and everyone kind of goes their separate ways? Yeah, this is one of those times.

"We just came off of a great BlizzCon. We had so many different games to talk about, and we were thrilled at the reception of Warlords of Draenor. It was great to meet or reconnect with so many of you. I love BlizzCon dearly, which makes it so hard to tell you that this will be my last one, or at least my last one up on stage. An opportunity has come my way, and I have made the very tough decision to move on from Blizzard.

"I wanted to thank all of you for being a part of this grand quest. I have said a hundred times that having passionate gamers, including the angry ones, is a far better place to be than having a community that doesn’t care. You all care. Like us, you want the game to be the best that it can be. So I ask you to keep on providing your feedback. I promise (and I rarely promise!) that the developers care very much about what you have to say.

"I’ll be out there, and I can’t imagine it will be that hard to find me.

"Hugs,
"Ghostcrawler

"P.S. No, you can’t have a pony. Or a moose. Or a mantis shrimp. Or a tardigrade. Or a crab. Keep trying though.

"P.P.S. I play a Holy Priest."

On twitter he's since gone on to confirm again that he is leaving Blizzard due to a "great opportunity" and stated that it is simply time to move on. He is leaving on good terms and will continue to play WoW! We at ZAM would like to wish him all the best in his future adventures, wherever they may take him.

Ghostcrawler, we salute you.

Penny for your thoughts,

Qelric

Follow me on twitter: @QelricDK

Comments

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Missed?
# Nov 27 2013 at 7:15 PM Rating: Decent
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1,882 posts
Missed? MISSED? I'm sorry but... ahahahahahaha. I might actually return to WoW if he's gone. His knee-jerk overkill fix to every single issue is a big part of what drove me away from WoW. Before he was in charge, I remember looking forward to patches. Starting with Wrath and his reign, every patch made drastic changes that caused a whole host of other problems. And then he'd "fix" the "fixes". I'm not sure who is actually going to MISS him. I'll be very surprised if one person says they'll miss him.
Missed?
# Nov 27 2013 at 8:08 PM Rating: Good
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ekaterinodar wrote:
Missed? MISSED? I'm sorry but... ahahahahahaha. I might actually return to WoW if he's gone. His knee-jerk overkill fix to every single issue is a big part of what drove me away from WoW. Before he was in charge, I remember looking forward to patches. Starting with Wrath and his reign, every patch made drastic changes that caused a whole host of other problems. And then he'd "fix" the "fixes". I'm not sure who is actually going to MISS him. I'll be very surprised if one person says they'll miss him.

seems kinda harsh, considering you should just congratulate him on his new endeavors (even if he did those things)


Congratz Ghostcrawler on your new futures!!!
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Missed?
# Nov 27 2013 at 10:35 PM Rating: Good
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1,882 posts
I didn't mean to sound harsh. As a person, he seems great, but his design sense stunk and I would much rather have someone else in charge of the game.
Missed?
# Nov 28 2013 at 12:09 AM Rating: Good
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ekaterinodar wrote:
I didn't mean to sound harsh. As a person, he seems great, but his design sense stunk and I would much rather have someone else in charge of the game.


His design gave us one of the most-loved expansions of all time: Wrath of the Lich King.
His design gave us another expansion tied with LK for most-loved expansion of all time: Mists of Pandaria.

He gave us do-able Heroics, More fun and smooth gameplay, more balanced playing fields for most of the classes in PvE, and a whole slew of other things to make the game more accessible to the masses instead of having a game for JUST the hardcore.

He will be missed indeed and it worries me as to what might happen now that he's gone. Hopefully whoever takes his place isn't stupid enough to unleash another Cataclysm upon us.
Missed?
# Nov 28 2013 at 2:23 AM Rating: Good
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1,882 posts
Lyrailis wrote:
His design gave us one of the most-loved expansions of all time: Wrath of the Lich King.
His design gave us another expansion tied with LK for most-loved expansion of all time: Mists of Pandaria.


Actually, I found MoP to be intolerable. He also brought us Cataclysm.

Quote:
He gave us do-able Heroics,


You mean he made heroics on par with regular dungeons removing any type of challenge short of raiding from PvE (and ultimately resulting in the removal of regular max level dungeons).

Quote:
a whole slew of other things to make the game more accessible to the masses instead of having a game for JUST the hardcore.


You see, when I started playing in BC, I wasn't a hardcore player. I never was a hardcore player. My guild was composed of non-hardcore players, and even they became bored by the constant removal of anything challenging. Elite mini-dungeons in the open world? Gone. Group quests? Gone. Challenging dungeons while leveling? Gone. First 85 levels of game? Obsolete / wastes of time.

In making everything "accessible" he turned it into a mindless button mashing fest. Yay, I can do more... great until you realize you're just completing a bunch of mindless tasks that only challenge your patience. Last I played, to die in the first 80 or so levels of the game you had to go out of your way, and even then it was unlikely. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to return to the days of leveling my priest with a wand, but I want there to be some kind of challenge, some chance to lose, something to overcome besides absolute drudgery.

If I wanted to spend my days completing mindless tasks I can already do that. It's called a job. And at least then I'd get paid to do that mindless work and contribute to society. I expect a game to do more than provide me with time sinks and make me pay for them.


Edited, Nov 28th 2013 3:24am by ekaterinodar

Edited, Nov 28th 2013 3:24am by ekaterinodar
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