Jeff Kaplan, one of the founding fathers of WoW leaves blizzard

Another one bites the dust.
:confused:

A sad day =[

I was playing during vanilla but i was still in school and i was using ISDN connection. Had to stop because … u know … priorities.

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Legacy of Steel - Archives

I’ll just link that and then people can have a field trip if they want. :sweat_smile:

I mean, Tigole (Jeff Kaplan) and Furor (Alex Afrasiabi) probably accounted for 50% of all the swearing that happened on the internet at the time.

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The days when servers were down for days for maintenance i wonder how people would cope with that now .

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When does Ion Hazikospulas leave?

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Many veterans are leaving the companies they’ve been working at for generations or even helped create. Dan Houser left Rockstar. He’s THE guy responsible for everything great that Rockstar created. Him and his brother founded the company, had the vision to hire a shock jock to help create the culture in GTA 3 and onward. He had just written and released RDR2 and after it he quit.

I can’t imagine working in the same company for 20 years. Imagine reaching a place where you can’t grow anymore. The direction of the company doesn’t even matter. When you go mountain climbing, you reach the summit, drink some tea and get down. You need another summit to conquer.

There’s this saying about creative people - you should never be the greatest guy in the room. That means there’s nobody you can learn from, you can’t improve if you’re the greatest. If you’re at the top, it’s time to move on.

Obviously Activision and Blizz’s direction played a role, but also… veterans leaving a giant corporation when they achieve the ability to pursue whatever vision they please, unshackled from investors, shareholders and corporate overlords, of course they’ll take it. Even if Blizz was at its peak right now, we’d still be seeing veterans leaving.

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Yes. Now he should join dream haven.

This is true, but not at the rate Blizzard is losing their veterans, and I also struggle to believe they’d leave mid project if they were happy.

We’ll never know why Jeff left, he’s too professional and probably has too much respect for certain people at Blizzard to ever say anything more than PR stuff.
He was probably under way too much pressure from OW2 and we have to call out companies when we see them treating their employees like garbage, and Blizzard is no exception. In fact Blizzard has a terrible track record as it currently stands with no improvements.

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Ngl, it’s only wise to abandon the sinking ship :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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Ion holds his chair tight :joy: I think we’ll have to watch that overpaid ignoramus for a long time.

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If another company would offer me more money and benefits, why would I stay in the old one? :thinking: Pride?
Pride doesn’t pay bills and a nicer life.

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I really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really doubt Jeff gives a damn about money at this point.

With 99.999% confidence I don’t think money is the factor about his decision.

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[quote=“Pertos-bladefist, post:12, topic:271763”]
clearly something is wrong with the workplace at blizzard.
[/quote

sadly an industry standard now, not just Blizz, waaay to much pressure to keep the moneymen happy, it’s a far cry from coding in your bedroom after school to the slave caves they have now.

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think he says all he needs to with this…
“never accept the world as it appears to be. always dare to see it for what it could be. hope you do the same.”

gg,

jeffrey kaplan
i imagine he feels he’s done all he can and there’s nowhere else to go but a change of scene. this is natural no matter what your job.

i’m just repeating myself here but ‘always dare to see it for what it could be’ is what made WoW great in the first place, whereas ‘never accept the world as it appears to be’ is what it is now.

that’s fine for a lot of you, but you’ll never convince me that the game doesn’t need new energy, new creativity, new risks, not the stagnant business model pushed out by the suits.

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Every single departure is not necessarly bad.

I mean, look at this guy :

I’m glad he’s gone.

Yes, for example Ghostcrawler departure was the best thing that happened to WOW.

'tisn’t sinking though…it just sits in the harbour like a prison ship…:stuck_out_tongue:

People come and go. It’s sad to see when the great names leave, but we have to trust that new people come who know what they’re doing just as well.

And my concern is sort-of that… there didn’t.

Now, most of the people that’s left recently were either in team 1 or didn’t have any involvement with WoW for many years, or both.

I think WoW’s core design pillars are just lost, and the current development team don’t know how to restore them. Instead they just listen to the community, that is do whatever people want them to do, and produce a somewhat mediocre experience because, in the end, most of you in here are not game designers.

I don’t really have a lot of confidence in how WoW is being run. There was a moment there with Shadowlands where suddenly I could tell from the interviews and everything that was going on that, hey, they actually got it. They understood it.

Now? Now they’re undoing most of the things they got right on the mighty alter of QQ. Real shame, that.

They need people like Jeff to help them correct course but… they’re gone.

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anyway…thank you mr Kaplan, you and your cronies stole 16 years of my life…

best wishes…tc :slight_smile: