He successfully led OW for a while, but the game has been going downhill in recent years. It’s probably time for a shift.
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He did a great job with Overwatch!, and I wish him the best of luck with his next adventure.
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Well, that’s unfortunate.
Oh nooooooooooooooo a Blizzard employee has become an ex Blizzard employee…
WHY BOBBY WHYYYYYYYY!!! YOU JUST HAD TO ACCEPT THE 200 MILL BONUS PAYCHECK!!! IF YOU HAD ONLY…
a Not accepted it.
B gave every cent of it to worthy causes.
C gave it to employees
D. gave it to me.
E. Filled a moon rocket with it and send it with a time capsule to Mars.
F. Become a very highly paid CEO of another company, not the saintly do no wrong Blizzard.
None. NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED!
FAREWELL JEFF KAPLAN, I didn’t know you, never met you, but I just want to say that this has left with me such a hole in my heart not even raisin pizza could fill it…
Farewell sweet prince, may you one day return as Sir valiant and rescue Blizzard from it’s inevitable demise in…
2 weeks…? 4?
I think they’ve just scaled up their plans for it.
Originally it seemed as if OW would be driven by small content updates and DLC.
Then they shifted toward the idea of Overwatch 2 to spurr re-interest in the game.
And then they have clearly scaled the Overwatch 2 project up in scope since its announcement, because they realize they can’t just release the same game with some co-op missions and a few extra maps and a new hero or two. People expect more. So they’re clearly just developing a ton of PvE content (hundreds of co-op missions I’ve heard) and re-imagining the gameplay and the heroes and totally re-doing the game, a bit like FFXIV it feels like.
I think Blizzard would like if their games fall into the realm of being small projects with frequent updates, like Hearthstone. That’s the model to strive for.
But all too often they find themselves in familiar territory where they are producing these giant juggernaut games that Blizzard are known for, and which unfortunately takes years and years to come out. And Overwatch 2 seems to be a good example of that, where the project just keeps growing bigger and bigger.
From the beginning I say that OW2 is one of the biggest nonsense I have heard. Small graphic enhancements, a few pvp maps, pointless pve missions and put 2 on the box. Great… They could put all that in the current OW and call it a patch, not OW2. If they really want to make a good, quality OW2 game then they need to make something like Destiny 2. I haven’t followed the development of the game for the last year, but if they still stick to the original plan then I still think OW2 is complete nonsense. Anyway, we’ll see what comes out of that game.
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All the talent are leaving the sinking ship that is Blizzard. Kaplan was very popular among the community, he has a certain charismatic charm about him which people like, almost everything he said was worthy of becoming a meme. I enjoyed listening to his views and his updates on Overwatch despite the terrible direction they decided to take that game.
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Some people would describe him as a guy that would “fail upwards”. Some people are blaming Jeff for turning WoW into this elitist raid hierarchy.
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I don’t specifically know his involvement in WOW, I know he was one of the OG Blizzard devs and he designed a lot of Vanilla raid content other than that i’m kinda clueless.
I mean hes not had an impact on WoW iirc since Overwatch?
totally agree.
Saddening this is as crushing as when alex afrasabi left quietly last year, who actually wrote a lot of the quests and lore from vanilla to legion.
rip another classic dev, blizzard is weaker without you jeff.
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I’ll miss him a lot, it was always nice to see him at blizzcon, he was among the last developers who could stand on the stage and I would genuinely believe that he cared about the game he was talking about. He still did this out of passion. It’s really sad that he’s gone, but I wish him the best for his future plans.
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Said this before Could just released a free dlc with pve modes Overwatch 2 just feels stupid Same game but with pve mode
Looks at Forum content
You sure?..
He made OW such a good game, it feels his leave is probably because he didn’t like the direction Overwatch 2 is going, and there are some rumors supporting that on the net, this leave mid-project probably greatly increase the credit of these rumors.
He’s also famous for the fine I’ll do it myself rant in Everquest, where he basically goes off on the Everquest devs ( just like us forumers! ) and joins blizzard to then create WoW the world best MMORPG game.
For anyone interested, you just need to google tigole bitties which was his nick name ( yes its exactly what you think it is, one of those analogies, he’s one of us! )
I think he’s probably going to join Dreamhaven ( hopefully )or another game studio later on.
Should dreamhaven announce an MMO or make an MMO it could be the only real threat to WoW which would actually be healthy for WoW : search healthy competition in business.
He’s not the only big name from blizzard leaving, I heard 3 of them left in just a few weeks, this definitely spells that something is up.
I find this news actually exciting too, not sad. ofcourse, it is disheartening to see a good Dev leave a beloved game company, but it also spells new chances and innovation!
Good luck to Jeff, Blizzard and probably Dreamhaven, the next few years seem to be a very interesting times.
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As much as I like wow and blizzard they are increasingly starting to resemble Simpsons and just like Simpsons everything good should end when it’s still at least fine and not just cash in with a name and nostalgia.
In February 2009, Kaplan announced that he was stepping down as game director for WoW to switch his role at Blizzard to a new, unannounced MMO, which later was revealed as Titan.
Some people have no idea what they’re talking about as he haven’t been involved with WoW since 2009 (Which is 3 months into WOTLK)
Everyone at Blizzard have impact on all games. Its not like just becouse you work on different game you cant go and talk to developers from other teams. This is actualy where most creative ideas come from. Blizzard team are not this isolated units where everybody do their stuff in their little corner of Blizzard and ignore everybody els.
You realise “tigole” was crapping all over everquest because the raid encounters were badly designed in his opinion and too easy, because him and his guild would play non stop whenever new content would come out, to the point that they cleared everything in two days, in one sitting.
So you see how much he influenced WoW and the raid or die mentality.