GW2's Colin Johanson leaves Arenanet; Mike O’brien takes over as game director

[carnifex2005]

Pretty huge news, since he was the face of the game developer wise. It will be interesting where this game goes from here. He will be missed. I'm guessing he's joining all those other ANet staff who have left to join Amazon Gaming in Seattle.

http://massivelyop.com/2016/03/04/gu...game-director/

[Kazgrel]

Looking through the AMA, it's refreshing to see them admit to mistakes, notably with how open world areas are tied so heavily to meta-events (specifically the new HoT areas) as well as how they really pushed people away from dungeons (and they don't have a team of folks dedicated to them at all...shame). That said, admitting mistakes is one thing; taking steps to correct them is another.

Colin's departure looks to have been on good terms. I'm not blaming him for all that I perceive is wrong with GW2/HoT, even if I do believe he played a signifcant role in decisions that lead to HoT. Would be no different than blaming Ghostcrawler for any and everything wrong with WoW when he left.

[Edge-]

Honestly...at this point I'm mildly concerned.

Between the exodus of senior staff (which is common for games when they're struggling a bit, same has happened at launch for ESO/SWTOR and others. Anet avoided this at its initial launch entirely) and the good-but-lower-than-expected revenue bump/sales numbers (estimated) for HoT things aren't looking super hot : /

Oh well, hopefully they'll make good on their statements to decouple the new zones from major events/meta events, that's been one of the biggest hurdles for me.

[carnifex2005]

Here's a nice summary of the AMA Anet did with several devs in the Colin leaving announcement thread.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/...res_a_summary/

[LilSaihah]

It's sad.

I did manage to hear someone asking an ANet guy about it and apparently Colin had a 2-hour commute to work each day so I can totally sympathize with him leaving to have more time with his family.

[Fencers]

Eh. I was not very into the direction Johanson for the series.

Would be nice if Jon Peters took the reigns. He's an engineer with a great eye for design.

[Tome]

Colin was great and fun. I mainly liked him because he did interact with the community quite a lot, and his smile sure became something else.

I'm not really going into design choices (as I probably should be doing) but since I haven't played Guild Wars 2 for a while, I can't bother to comment on it.

[Fernling306]

Eh. I was not very into the direction Johanson for the series.

Would be nice if Jon Peters took the reigns. He's an engineer with a great eye for design.

Not sure if you knew, but Jon Peters left the company mid 2015. He went to work for Amazon as a senior combat designer.

[Fencers]

Not sure if you knew, but Jon Peters left the company mid 2015. He went to work for Amazon as a senior combat designer.

Ah, no. I hadn't heard the news. Huh. Interesting.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

That's sad, I'm fond of the world design, and the *random encounters* Combat system(You get these abilities for this type of weapon and only so many attacks to chose from, less fun). Otherwise, GWII is a pretty powerful successor to the first Guild Wars game.

[Edge-]

Ah, no. I hadn't heard the news. Huh. Interesting.

They've lost a lot of folks in the past 6ish months

Jon Peters, Colin Johanson, Jeff Grub, Eric Flannum, and I feel like I'm missed someone.

A lot of those folks had been there for years, but it's always questionable when a lot of senior leadership leave around the time of a major launch.

[carnifex2005]

They've lost a lot of folks in the past 6ish months

Jon Peters, Colin Johanson, Jeff Grub, Eric Flannum, and I feel like I'm missed someone.

A lot of those folks had been there for years, but it's always questionable when a lot of senior leadership leave around the time of a major launch.

Almost all of them went to Amazon though so I'm guessing the simple answer is that Amazon pays a lot better.

[Fernling306]

They've lost a lot of folks in the past 6ish months

Jon Peters, Colin Johanson, Jeff Grub, Eric Flannum, and I feel like I'm missed someone.

A lot of those folks had been there for years, but it's always questionable when a lot of senior leadership leave around the time of a major launch.

Are you by chance thinking of Chris Whiteside? I believe he left about a year ago.

Edit.

Oh, maybe you're thinking of Devon Carter?

[Svifnymr]

Almost all of them went to Amazon though so I'm guessing the simple answer is that Amazon pays a lot better.

Might be off topic, but what does Amazon Games even do? I saw some tablet games listed, but these seem like pretty big names for something like that.

[Valeron]

Might be off topic, but what does Amazon Games even do? I saw some tablet games listed, but these seem like pretty big names for something like that.

some big project I imagine

it will probably be a MOBA...

[Fernling306]

Might be off topic, but what does Amazon Games even do? I saw some tablet games listed, but these seem like pretty big names for something like that.

I've heard several people say their "large" projects consist of a MOBA and a FPS. With very little research I haven't been able to find any solid evidence that points to either.

[Valeron]

I've heard several people say their "large" projects consist of a MOBA and a FPS. With very little research I haven't been able to find any solid evidence that points to either.

we definitely need more MOBAs

[Fencers]

some big project I imagine

it will probably be a MOBA...

Wow, interesting!

I didn't read much about the Amazon games thing except a few articles about the game engine being open source. Really interesting that Amazon games (?) wooed Anet devs that were responsible for a more action-focused, PVP supportive and limited action combat system of GW2.

If Amazon games are working on a MOBA with dynamic action it would seem at least some of the devs working for them have a mind for such.

[zito]

Almost all of them went to Amazon though so I'm guessing the simple answer is that Amazon pays a lot better.

starting wage for a amazon packer (w/e the people are called to ship and pack items to customers) is 13 an hour and apparently they get 2 15 min break, 1 hour lunch break and have their own cafeteria. Full time is 4 days a week 10 hour shifts giving you 3 days off.

It's actually quite nice.

[barackopala]

Been having conversations with certain people close to colin and other anet staff members and from what i got out of it was that not everyone at anet knew about colin leaving the company, the main reason colin left was due to family concerns and how much time GW2 took out of him leaving him with very little time to be with his relatives. Wish colin best of luck on his new endeavours.