Jeff Kaplan

[Pua]

As for his PoV on raiding, as an ex-raider I liked it, however, it wouldn't work nowadays.

It's funny, because this is one of those statements that we'll never be able to prove.

Note that that doesn't mean I think you're wrong, lightspark; you may, in fact, be absolutely right. I think there's a compelling argument to be made on whether or not modern gaming audiences could handle the decade-old philosophy that World of Warcraft launched with. But shutting the door once the horse has bolted makes it very challenging to say for sure, and all we can do is wonder what Kaplan would bring to live servers that'd improve what's being offered up at the moment. Games that have tried to recreate the original World of Warcraft have largely flunked, but none of them were the lightning rod that the original was for a multitude of reasons - correlation doesn't equal causation.

I think all we could objectively say is that Jeff Kaplan was a major contributor to one of the greatest games ever made, and that (as a designer) he was the right guy at the right time. Is he the right guy for the game right now?

It's impossible to say.

[Divinexve]

Jeff Kappalan

[Relapses]

It's funny, because this is one of those statements that we'll never be able to prove.

Note that that doesn't mean I think you're wrong, lightspark; you may, in fact, be absolutely right. I think there's a compelling argument to be made on whether or not modern gaming audiences could handle the decade-old philosophy that World of Warcraft launched with. But shutting the door once the horse has bolted makes it very challenging to say for sure, and all we can do is wonder what Kaplan would bring to live servers that'd improve what's being offered up at the moment. Games that have tried to recreate the original World of Warcraft have largely flunked, but none of them were the lightning rod that the original was for a multitude of reasons - correlation doesn't equal causation.

I think all we could objectively say is that Jeff Kaplan was a major contributor to one of the greatest games ever made, and that (as a designer) he was the right guy at the right time. Is he the right guy for the game right now?

It's impossible to say.

No it's not "impossible to say," he'd be fucking cancer. The forums would literally explode if shit like "hybrid tax" was re-implemented. Oh, and designing the game for .01% of its playerbase. That'll be a swift kick in the pants after four expansions of making the game more accessible. Further, it's not nearly as difficult to figure out whether a huge time sink MMO would be as popular today as it was in 2004. Just look at what other games are popular in today's climate: League, Overwatch, CSGO, DotA. Each of these games focuses on being able to be consumed on smaller, faster-paced time investments. WoW of old would stick out like a sore thumb and outside of appealing to the extremely small portion of today's gaming population which would prefer this (hi pro-Legacy circlejerk), would be completely out of place. It'd be a recipe for disaster on all fronts.

[Kokolums]

There is absolutely no evidence that catchup mechanics and speedy leveling have retained subs. Subs drop a lot after the first few months after release which didnt happen when leveling was harder. Maybe its hurting subs because easier leveling allows people to reach and clear all the content they want that much faster, and once that happens they cancel the sub.

[JoshuaNLG]

I'm playing a lot of Overwatch and I'm loving the way jeff is constantly communicating with the community and keeping us updated frequently with the dev update videos.

[Kokolums]

The fact that there is essentially no MMO out there with more classic wow or asian MMO elements to it, that is sustaining a playerbase even remotely close to WoW shows that a majority of people don't want that kind of game.

On the other hand, vanilla pirate servers pop up, get established, and grow wildly until blizzard comes in and stops them. Thats evidence they want that type of game

[ro9ue]

Definitely.

He knows what an MMO is about compared to the instant gratification, teleportation menus, content avoiding players that write posts that World of Warcraft should become more and more a solo game.

I agree with this book.

[Eyliria]

I love Jeff Kaplan but people seem to forget that he's was still on the WoW team for the development of WoTLK the xpac that started to water down the games difficulty. I always say Blizz Shot Themselves in the Foot in WoTLK in the long term for a number of reasons. But remember Jeff was there when 5 mans went from being a comprehensive dungeon crawl to an AoE fest.

I think he would have had enough foresight though to know that Xrealm, LFR, and LFG would be detrimental to server communites. These all happened after he left.

He left right after Ulduar, which was referred as his last piece of work in the game -- just look at the following raids (ToC and ICC) and the drop in quality that they had. IMO, based on how quickly LFG came into being after he left, it shows that he was basically holding against the floodgates there, and i wouldnt be surprised if that was the reason he moved onto something else at the time (Project Titan).

[Kokolums]

Btw, rob pardo left and started his own gaming company called bonfire studios. It sounds like their goal is to make an mmo that features in game communities (the name bonfire was chosen for that reason). If they do that and also make something edgier than wildstar i bet they kill wow. I really do. No one is focusing on the in game community but bonfire.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Nope, not at all. Legion sets the tone for WoW going forward.

Players out in the world? Check. Even though Classic fanboys said this would pass as months went by, people have more reason now than ever to be out in the world and appreciate seeing other players/grouping up with them.

Rich story? Check, so much so that I'm tired of questing for shit... But alas, I still love it deep down.

Constant content releases? Check, hopefully they'll keep it up but they have so far and would fail with the first patch according to the "WoW is and always has been defined by WOD!!!!!!111"-crowd...

I don't miss a single person when WoW is a team effort, and so far Legion has given me exactly the things I came to enjoy and love WoW for in spades.

[Relapses]

On the other hand, vanilla pirate servers pop up, get established, and grow wildly until blizzard comes in and stops them. Thats evidence they want that type of game

Yeah, those MASSIVE private realms with literally dozens of players on them. DOZENS!

- - - Updated - - -

There is absolutely no evidence that catchup mechanics and speedy leveling have retained subs. Subs drop a lot after the first few months after release which didnt happen when leveling was harder. Maybe its hurting subs because easier leveling allows people to reach and clear all the content they want that much faster, and once that happens they cancel the sub.

This might be a strange concept but perhaps Blizzard considers max-level content the meat and potatoes of their expansions and therefore designs around it! What a positively spooky idea!

- - - Updated - - -

dude, he is only human. This is one of his rants back during his Everquest days all before Blizzard. BREAKING NEWS. He was salty, just like we've all been, but ultimately, he was commuted to improvement. He clearly did not turn this into a habit of his. Stop using something far from the past as a way to retaliate. Its pathetic.

I don't give a flying fuck what you think about the guy but I think it's important for people to have a complete understanding of the guy's personality instead of waxing nostalgic and creating a glorified, histrionic manipulation of what he represented during his time as lead developer of the game.

[Eggroll]

Ah yes, good ol Jeff Kaplan. What a reasonable, non-temperamental and completely unbiased lead developer. Responsible for such non-rage induced quotes like this one, which he wrote about EQ shortly before moving to WoW:

"Whoever came up with this sheer fisting of an encounter can go fuck themselves. Do me a favor so I don't waste my guild's time on this kind of jackass shit-fest again, send me an email at tigole@legacyofsteel.net when you decide to A) Implement an encounter that wasn't designed by a retarded chimp chained to a cubicle A.)Get a Quality Assuarance Department C) Actually beta test the fucking thing and D) Patch it live. And please for god's sake -- do it in the order I laid out for you. Don't worry, I won't charge you a consulting fee on that one. And for good luck you might as well E) Pull your heads out of your asses. While you're at it rename the game to BetaQuest since you've used up you're alotted false advertising karma on the Bazaar and user interface scam of '01.Fix the Emperor encounter. Fix Seru. Rethink your time-sink bullshit. Fix all the buggy motherfucking ring encounters (I suggest you let whoever made the Burrower one do this since that dude apparently laid off the crack the rest of you were smoking). Fix the VT key quest. Fix VT (just guessing it's fucked up considering your track record). Don't have the resources to fix this stuff? Move the ENTIRE Planes of Power team over to fixing Shadows of Luclin AND DO IT NOW. If you don't fix Luclin, you jackassess will be the only ones playing the Planes of Power."

Alas, this shining beacon of level-headed reasoning has moved onto bigger and better things! It's sad that the community has become so toxic in his stead.

Well at least it proves that he can walk in the shoes of the community of players because he has been there. I think that's a good thing. He knows where we are coming from when we rage, so he doesn't take it personally like the sissys we have on the dev team now...

[Heeresman]

I don't give a flying fuck what you think about the guy

You have some really great debating skills.
You do realise this is a thread about Jeff Kaplan and people will invariably post their thoughts about him?
If you can't or rather won't accept that people will have different opinions about the guy than your own then you should go and take a hike.
You have made it very clear what your stance is on him, parrot.

[Pua]

No it's not "impossible to say," he'd be fucking cancer.

It's a shame that your own, entirely subjective, views are presented as fact.

My erstwhile point was that a 2004 designer cannot be judged against a 2017 audience, unless you at least try to be sympathetic to the differences. The fact that you cite Overwatch, which has Jeff Kaplan as a lead designer, is deeply ironic.

Personally?

I'm not sure the traditional theme park MMORPG (as Warcraft fans understand it) works as a concept anymore at all. But that's another debate that needs serious consideration.

[JoshuaNLG]

Ah yes, good ol Jeff Kaplan. What a reasonable, non-temperamental and completely unbiased lead developer. Responsible for such non-rage induced quotes like this one, which he wrote about EQ shortly before moving to WoW:

"Whoever came up with this sheer fisting of an encounter can go fuck themselves. Do me a favor so I don't waste my guild's time on this kind of jackass shit-fest again, send me an email at tigole@legacyofsteel.net when you decide to A) Implement an encounter that wasn't designed by a retarded chimp chained to a cubicle A.)Get a Quality Assuarance Department C) Actually beta test the fucking thing and D) Patch it live. And please for god's sake -- do it in the order I laid out for you. Don't worry, I won't charge you a consulting fee on that one. And for good luck you might as well E) Pull your heads out of your asses. While you're at it rename the game to BetaQuest since you've used up you're alotted false advertising karma on the Bazaar and user interface scam of '01.Fix the Emperor encounter. Fix Seru. Rethink your time-sink bullshit. Fix all the buggy motherfucking ring encounters (I suggest you let whoever made the Burrower one do this since that dude apparently laid off the crack the rest of you were smoking). Fix the VT key quest. Fix VT (just guessing it's fucked up considering your track record). Don't have the resources to fix this stuff? Move the ENTIRE Planes of Power team over to fixing Shadows of Luclin AND DO IT NOW. If you don't fix Luclin, you jackassess will be the only ones playing the Planes of Power."

Alas, this shining beacon of level-headed reasoning has moved onto bigger and better things! It's sad that the community has become so toxic in his stead.

You are aware people can change dramatically in 14+ years right? Also, how dare he get upset over something he's passionate about, it's almost as if he was once in the shoes of those that are playing WoW now and complaining about the balance.. He wasn't a developer when he made that quote, he was a gamer. His mindset changed to adapt to his job. It happens.

Why don't you post some pictures of you with an emo cut with a panic at the disco tshirt on? I'm sure you'll tell us "that's not who i am anymore" same can be said for Jeff in response to that quote.

[Pua]

Players out in the world? Check. Even though Classic fanboys said this would pass as months went by, people have more reason now than ever to be out in the world and appreciate seeing other players/grouping up with them.

By the way, I'd quickly like to add:

I'm one of the WoW whingers on this forum, but...

World Quests are fucking great. Anyone who says otherwise, well, doesn't know what they're talking about.

It might have been lifted from Diablo, or even my thread, but World Quests are fantastic.

[Queen of Hamsters]

By the way, I'd quickly like to add:

I'm one of the WoW whingers on this forum, but...

World Quests are fucking great. Anyone who says otherwise, well, doesn't know what they're talking about.

It might have been lifted from Diablo, or even my thread, but World Quests are fantastic.

I agree, aside from when you have the Kirin Tor emissary and there's only "Like the wind"-quests up... -_-

[Pua]

I agree, aside from when you have the Kirin Tor emissary and there's only "Like the wind"-quests up... -_-

Aye, that sucks. But otherwise, World Quests are revolutionary.

[Aleax]

The design lead who purposly made sure that warriors was the only class who should be able to tank "for real" in vanilla because warriors should always be best? yeah sure... miss much.

I tanked in vanilla as a paladin... Then in BC it was much improved... then wrath.... then holy power f that up...

Previous poster you quoted was right. At least at the beginning of vanilla and almost to its end, warriors were the only viable tanks by design.
Paladins not really, there was this witch hunting on paladins, game designers overall wanted to keep paladins at bay, hence they were 5 min long buffers with a bit of healing and that's it.

[Relapses]

You have some really great debating skills.
You do realise this is a thread about Jeff Kaplan and people will invariably post their thoughts about him?
If you can't or rather won't accept that people will have different opinions about the guy than your own then you should go and take a hike.
You have made it very clear what your stance is on him, parrot.

Hey, way to completely fucking ignore what I was saying to hone in on the first part of my post. Do you work for Trump's PR department? Why bother creating a glorified image of Kaplan in our minds and incorrectly associate him with the "good ol days" of WoW while simultaneously ignoring the innumerable factors that go into game design which are far beyond the scope of one's personal opinion of him as a developer? It's important to understand that there were negative elements of his personality, too. My apologies for interrupting yet another "Vanilla WoW was the best, Jeff Kaplan was God and you're a fucking idiot if you disagree with this unwritten rule of the universe," thread.

It's a shame that your own, entirely subjective, views are presented as fact.

My erstwhile point was that a 2004 designer cannot be judged against a 2017 audience, unless you at least try to be sympathetic to the differences. The fact that you cite Overwatch, which has Jeff Kaplan as a lead designer, is deeply ironic.

Perhaps I misunderstood you. I presented very clear evidence that players in 2017 prefer gaming on smaller intervals. (As an aside, I am aware Kaplan is on OW now. But OW is not even remotely comparable to the older version of WoW you seemed to be yearning for.) You seemed to be implicating there's no way we'd ever know how 2004-era WoW would fare in today's gaming climate. 2004-era Kaplan trying to apply 2004-era ideology to WoW would be fucking terrible for the very obvious reasons I mentioned. There's room for debate as to whether 2017-era Kaplan would be good for WoW but it's probably for the best that he's moved on.

Additionally, there's something to be said about "classic WoW game design" but it's an important caveat to remember that MMOs in general are no longer the enormous cash cow they were in 2010 2009 when he left so I find fault in any argument which tries to manipulate reality to make a resurgence of the "old philosophy" prescient.

You are aware people can change dramatically in 14+ years right? Also, how dare he get upset over something he's passionate about, it's almost as if he was once in the shoes of those that are playing WoW now and complaining about the balance.. He wasn't a developer when he made that quote, he was a gamer. His mindset changed to adapt to his job. It happens.

Why don't you post some pictures of you with an emo cut with a panic at the disco tshirt on? I'm sure you'll tell us "that's not who i am anymore" same can be said for Jeff in response to that quote.

See above. The purpose of the sarcasm in my post wasn't to discredit him as a person but to make sure people understood both the positive- and negative aspects of his personality before blindly jumping in on the "DAE Vanilla WoW was so fucking great" circlejerk.