GC, more like a CM than lead system designer

#0 - April 22, 2009, 8:47 p.m.

Just curious as how can GC be the lead system designer yet have so much time here answering questions from the community.

I thought for someone in his position, a day at work would probably like endless meetings with other designers, and probably developers too, and discussions about game balance, new dungeon, new patch and whatever. But somehow, it seems to me that he has a lot of time to answer questions from the community.

Not saying that's a bad thing since I started playing in early 2005, I have never seen this kind of open communication between the developer and the player community. Like I said, I'm just curious due to the amount of blue posts under his name. A lot of the questions, I think, could not be so easily answered and a lot of them are really long answers.

Or is it true that the higher you are on the corporate ladder, the less work you actually need to do? :)

Nethaera

#3 - April 22, 2009, 8:57 p.m.

You might like to read his "Day in the life of a Developer" post. :)

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=16473140244&postId=164727280176&sid=1#20

It might give a bit more insight into his schedule.

Zarhym

#5 - April 22, 2009, 9:02 p.m.

It's his amazing diligence. The man works quite hard when he's here and is quite the multi-tasker. He's a strong believer in keeping an open dialog directly with the players so everyone can get a feel for where our developers are coming from, and he can get a feel for the community reaction. If there isn't enough time in his day at work to post on the forums, he'll tend to make time where he can to discuss things with players.

I think it's great to have him around. As much as we work on announcements and news messages as community managers, there's something about Ghostcrawler frequenting the forums we can't easily replace or replicate. Rather than having us relay developer feedback or insight on the forums all the time, sometimes it's best that you, as a player, have the immediate attention of the lead systems designer in a public setting.

He is truly more of a lead systems designer than a community manager. :)

Edit: What Neth said too!