Open Letter to Blizzard Entertainment from Mark Kern

[Ringthane]

Let's get this straight and this is coming from someone who has no great love or respect for Mark Kern. He says--and no one has ever contradicted him--that he left Blizzard about six months after WoW launched because he was exhausted and burned out.

The company he ran into the ground came after that.

Does it really matter though? If he is as rude and as much of a jerk as people say he is, then he's probably not worth listening to anyway.

And people don't really tend to talk about ex-employees once they become ex-employees. Maybe to friends or other employers looking to hire the ex-employee. But they don't tend to wax poetic on people once they're no longer employed. Especially if they were jerks. It's just good business practice.

[Queen of Hamsters]

So say they did that, and the expansion after Legion comes. You want them to make the new raids, then go back and tweak Legion raids so they're of equal difficulty and reward to the new expansion's raids, then all in Draenor, then all in Mysts, then all in Wrath, then all in BC, then all in the old world.. and they have to do this every.. single.. expansion.

How do you stop the screaming masses from saying 'It's now required to do them all cuz if I don't get the gearz now I fall behind!'
Or make it so people just keep doing the same raid over and over because it's easier than current content to get geared out?

Yeah it's a pretty dumb idea. The soloing community is more than enough to make use of old raids, no need for the devs to waste time on balancing outdated content unless it's a stat squish.

[Niwes]

So say they did that, and the expansion after Legion comes. You want them to make the new raids, then go back and tweak Legion raids so they're of equal difficulty and reward to the new expansion's raids, then all in Draenor, then all in Mysts, then all in Wrath, then all in BC, then all in the old world.. and they have to do this every.. single.. expansion.

How do you stop the screaming masses from saying 'It's now required to do them all cuz if I don't get the gearz now I fall behind!'
Or make it so people just keep doing the same raid over and over because it's easier than current content to get geared out?

its called weekly cap. are you that unimaginative ? really.

lets say you choose between nearly 50 raids to play whichever you want to get your weekly lets say 5k valor. and you think this is bad ??? wow.

[Lolsteak]

Holy shit - this video is embarassingly cringeworthy bad to watch. This guy talks to 'mike' like hes his best mate, when Mark left the company in shame.

Sounds like a bad informercial.

He quit on his own terms, No shame in it.

Wonder where you're getting your facts from

[Sorrowseer]

Looking forward to all this being forgotten in a few weeks, no more 'open letters' and rage whining entitlement about vanilla wow being the bestes. The nostalgia is just annoying, its a moving MMO its not supposed to be stuck in time with outdated features, certainly it should not be pirated.

[Wolfheart9]

its called weekly cap. are you that unimaginative ? really.

lets say you choose between nearly 50 raids to play whichever you want to get your weekly lets say 5k valor. and you think this is bad ??? wow.

So all drops will stop from bosses after x kills or y valor.

So how about the second question? Ensuring that no one raid is easier than the other for farming practices. Or what about tier sets, refarming up the same set time and time again in order to get the best bonus each time they upgrade it.

[Niwes]

Looking forward to all this being forgotten in a few weeks, no more 'open letters' and rage whining entitlement about vanilla wow being the bestes. The nostalgia is just annoying, its a moving MMO its not supposed to be stuck in time with outdated features, certainly it should not be pirated.

curious if you say the same thing about, when every video game older than 2-4 years would become unable to play. no starcraft for you. no d3 for you. no zelda xyz for you. no css source for you. no....

i expect ppl like YOU would been the loudest crying WTF. but you cant imagine the exactly same thing when it comes down to a mmo ? respect.

[MoanaLisa]

Does it really matter though? If he is as rude and as much of a jerk as people say he is, then he's probably not worth listening to anyway.

And people don't really tend to talk about ex-employees once they become ex-employees. Maybe to friends or other employers looking to hire the ex-employee. But they don't tend to wax poetic on people once they're no longer employed. Especially if they were jerks. It's just good business practice.

I think it matters that if someone is to run someone down they should do so with something that has some evidence behind it instead of doing so with notions that are not supported by anything. There's no evidence that he left Blizzard in disgrace. None. There's a literal mountain of it that his incompetence and bad behavior got him fired from his own company, Red5. No mean feat that. That's really all I'm getting at.

[Sansnom]

i have. and understand HOW much work it is. i DONT understand how you can let that much investment fade away into void, when actual content is over.

Out of interested, can you name one game you worked and as example the time required from conceptual to final release. As I said, would be interesting to hear it from someone with experience in developing a MMO.

Besides, I think they are using some of the returns from WoW into developing new games. HearthStone, Heroes of the Storm. That development has to come from somewhere. It is not usual for a company to diversify.

[Ausr]

curious if you say the same thing about, when every video game older than 2-4 years would become unable to play. no starcraft for you. no d3 for you. no zelda xyz for you. no css source for you. no....

i expect ppl like YOU would been the loudest crying WTF. but you cant imagine the exactly same thing when it comes down to a mmo ? respect.

Different games and different genres. Sorry your argument holds no water.

[Bapestar]

Looking forward to all this being forgotten in a few weeks, no more 'open letters' and rage whining entitlement about vanilla wow being the bestes. The nostalgia is just annoying, its a moving MMO its not supposed to be stuck in time with outdated features, certainly it should not be pirated.

How is it going back if new expansions keep being releasing, and you aren't even forced to play on the legacy servers? Unless you are admitting you wont be able to resist the awesomeness and will play on the legacy servers.

[Richardbro]

I've been entirely silent on this whole topic for the past few weeks but I think its time I shared my thoughts.

I play WoW every single day on live right now, and still enjoy the game considerably.

With that said, I think the inclusion of legacy servers would be an amazing thing for the game and its fans. I truthfully would probably play on one of them when I am bored or finished my daily chores on live.

It's great to see so many passionate fans that want to experience older expansions again and I think they deserve to experience that.

For anyone that is against this and bitter about all this and even the private server, I think you need to take a step back and realize there are a considerable amount of people that both enjoy and want this. Let them have what they want, there is no harm done to you and you shouldnt want people to suffer or enjoy themselves.

[Niwes]

So all drops will stop from bosses after x kills or y valor.

So how about the second question? Ensuring that no one raid is easier than the other for farming practices. Or what about tier sets, refarming up the same set time and time again in order to get the best bonus each time they upgrade it.

jesus, i never saw that unimaginative ppl. dont you ever had mathematics in school or what ? you just have to set the valor points given to the time investment the raid needs. your example is the so called "mechanar problem". and this ONLY exists because EVERY dngn in BC gave you same amount of valor. just put the valor values in a database (like they do nowadays) to have your knob to scale rewards with zero effort. if you are that naive i give you an example: a 34min raid gives 340 valor, a 45min raid gives 450 valor. you got it ? and if blizz see all ppl running just 1 raid for best valor per time, they simple take their knob and scale the valor down a little bit. its that simple man...

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Different games and different genres. Sorry your argument holds no water.

aha. ok. allright.

[Namalia]

And Blizzard did not say no.

We explored options for developing classic servers and none could be executed without great difficulty. If we could push a button and all of this would be created, we would. However, there are tremendous operational challenges to integrating classic servers, not to mention the ongoing support of multiple live versions for every aspect of WoW.

Sure they did. Right there.

[Wolfheart9]

jesus, i never saw that unimaginative ppl. dont you ever had mathematics in school or what ? you just have to set the valor points given to the time investment the raid needs. your example is the so called "mechanar problem". and this ONLY exists because EVERY dngn in BC gave you same amount of valor. just put the valor values in a database (like they do nowadays) to have your knob to scale rewards with zero effort. if you are that naive i give you an example: a 34min raid gives 340 valor, a 45min raid gives 450 valor. you got it ? and if blizz see all ppl running just 1 raid for best valor per time, they simple take their knob and scale the valor down a little bit. its that simple man...

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aha. ok. allright.

You seem to be only set on valor and answering absolutely nothing about the drops.. but as you're going to insults already on a very calm discussion, I'll leave you be.

[Ausr]

jesus, i never saw that unimaginative ppl. dont you ever had mathematics in school or what ? you just have to set the valor points given to the time investment the raid needs. your example is the so called "mechanar problem". and this ONLY exists because EVERY dngn in BC gave you same amount of valor. just put the valor values in a database (like they do nowadays) to have your knob to scale rewards with zero effort. if you are that naive i give you an example: a 34min raid gives 340 valor, a 45min raid gives 450 valor. you got it ? and if blizz see all ppl running just 1 raid for best valor per time, they simple take their knob and scale the valor down a little bit. its that simple man...

- - - Updated - - -



aha. ok. allright.

Well, you were comparing a MMO to an action adventure game, online FPS, an offline rpg, online strategy game, and action roleplaying game. Surprised you didn't want to say sports, fighters, and puzzles.

[Nynax]

This is the guy who got kicked out from the very own company he started ? I'm totally going to take him srsly...

To be fair, so did Steve Jobs. Who is now the Zen God of tech startups everywhere.

Not saying this guy is any good though

[Niwes]

You seem to be only set on valor and answering absolutely nothing about the drops.. but as you're going to insults already on a very calm discussion, I'll leave you be.

again: your imagination is unbelivable low.

a hint: you cant onky scale valor point value. you can scale stats on gear as well. the same way. remember the autoscaling stats drop mechanic they have since mists ? it may sounds brutal to you, but .... they can use that. but psssst....

god, really guy, you are just dumb. i find no other word describing your nonexistence of imagination and simple game design understanding. sorry.

[Pengalor]

jesus, i never saw that unimaginative ppl. dont you ever had mathematics in school or what ? you just have to set the valor points given to the time investment the raid needs. your example is the so called "mechanar problem". and this ONLY exists because EVERY dngn in BC gave you same amount of valor. just put the valor values in a database (like they do nowadays) to have your knob to scale rewards with zero effort. if you are that naive i give you an example: a 34min raid gives 340 valor, a 45min raid gives 450 valor. you got it ? and if blizz see all ppl running just 1 raid for best valor per time, they simple take their knob and scale the valor down a little bit. its that simple man...

Where are you getting those times from? Besides, time doesn't equal difficulty. It's not that people aren't 'imaginative', it's that they are calling out your ridiculous suggestions that you clearly haven't thought through all the way. Actually, you and Mark Kern would probably get along well in that respect...

[Eliseus]

Sorry, 5.5 Million the last time they told us.

Keep drinking the koolaid.