Titan Lead-Designer laid off?

[Caiada]

Can't recall exactly where, but Tom Chilton specifically said that MoP was not the next WoW expansion, and that "a name like that would be used for comic books" or something to that effect. It's been quoted here a couple times.

"if you look at traditionally how we've handled that race it's been in those secondary products because we haven't realized it in the world. Most of the time when we do anything panda-related it's going to be a comic book or a figurine or something like that."

I'm missing the denial part.

[Joshmaul]

I'm missing the denial part.

That's what people saw, considering how many people went "OMFG MMO-C was WRONG!!!" when he said that. Only to go "WTF Blizz why you lie?" when MoP was announced in October. Me, I figured it would be, and they'd wait until BlizzCon to announce it - but plenty were all "naw, can't be" and clung to Chilton's statement as confirmation.

[Caiada]

That's what people saw, considering how many people went "OMFG MMO-C was WRONG!!!" when he said that. Only to go "WTF Blizz why you lie?" when MoP was announced in October. Me, I figured it would be, and they'd wait until BlizzCon to announce it - but plenty were all "naw, can't be" and clung to Chilton's statement as confirmation.

That's their fault for misinterpreting a vague statement as a denial.

[Irisel]

Maybe he'll leak infoz out of spite ^_^

[Kaeleena]

Simple equation. Investors want to continue raking in the same amount of profits and getting paid the same dividends while collecting less income. Development and customer support get axed(especially development of unreleased games ie unprofitable games).

[Wildmoon]

He is not lead designer... just one of the team which have many people that can replace him.

[Halicia]

That's what people saw, considering how many people went "OMFG MMO-C was WRONG!!!" when he said that. Only to go "WTF Blizz why you lie?" when MoP was announced in October. Me, I figured it would be, and they'd wait until BlizzCon to announce it - but plenty were all "naw, can't be" and clung to Chilton's statement as confirmation.

People saw it because they were too foolish to think that they could be lied to.

I took the statement as what it was, typical Blizzard obfuscation.

"When we do anything panda-related its going to be a comic book or something like that."

Since the response was SPECIFICALLY regarding MoP as an expansion, I think that's a little bigger then a 'comic book'.

But of course he played the clever lawyer and added 'most of the time', so... hey... I guess he just didnt KNOW that there was this big huge expansion revolving around pandas in the works and decided to focus instead on promoting the cute little panda plushies.

If he'd wanted to be honest, but been unable to disclose anything, the statement would have been something to the effect of, "We are in the process of developing the next WoW expansion, but I am unable to confirm or deny its title or anything involved with it at this time."

Instead, they felt the need to deny the fact that they have, in fact, put a HUGE development effort behind a 'panda-related product', thats hard to call 'secondary', as he did.

[Deleo]

People saw it because they were too foolish to think that they could be lied to.

I took the statement as what it was, typical Blizzard obfuscation.

"When we do anything panda-related its going to be a comic book or something like that."

Since the response was SPECIFICALLY regarding MoP as an expansion, I think that's a little bigger then a 'comic book'.

But of course he played the clever lawyer and added 'most of the time', so... hey... I guess he just didnt KNOW that there was this big huge expansion revolving around pandas in the works and decided to focus instead on promoting the cute little panda plushies.

If he'd wanted to be honest, but been unable to disclose anything, the statement would have been something to the effect of, "We are in the process of developing the next WoW expansion, but I am unable to confirm or deny its title or anything involved with it at this time."

Instead, they felt the need to deny the fact that they have, in fact, put a HUGE development effort behind a 'panda-related product', thats hard to call 'secondary', as he did.

Well I don't know about any comics on pandas but they have had a pandarean in WC3 and a whole expansion on pandas, so that "most of the time" part is not really correct either.

[Ravenblade]

This is what the internet does when they blow a simple misclick on Facebook out of proportion by foreseeing the comings of the end times. For all we know he may have just been burned out and wanted some different angle in terms of creativity. Happens all the time. Maybe he's got his own ideas and they were not compatible with what Blizzard had in mind, or he wants to work somewhere else for different reasons (family?). In any case you should make a list of people who left and came Blizzards during the time leading up to WoW's release. You will find a surprising amount of them on the list.

[styopa]

"next big MMO, the successor to World of Warcraft."....... Fun, especially because Blizzard have constantly said, that "Titan" would be something on the side, not the successor....

Considering that WoW is long in the tooth, quite possibly jumping the shark by adding comic pandas for their next race* , and poke-battles...and while they're not quite hemorrhaging subscriptions but looking a little pale lately, I'd say that they lost a bit of leverage in whether THEY get to decide whether Titan is a successor or parallel product.

*this isn't totally a slam, I'll probably buy it and come back to level at least a few of my alts

[Throrion]

First of all, there's no telling if it's true. Second of all, there won't be any telling if it's true because Blizzard don't comment on the employment statuses of individuals out of respect for their privacy. Kotaku is such a waste of internet space, fucking stir up unsourced drama wherever they can. -.-

---------- Post added 2011-11-14 at 04:44 PM ----------

People saw it because they were too foolish to think that they could be lied to.

I took the statement as what it was, typical Blizzard obfuscation.

"When we do anything panda-related its going to be a comic book or something like that."

Since the response was SPECIFICALLY regarding MoP as an expansion, I think that's a little bigger then a 'comic book'.

But of course he played the clever lawyer and added 'most of the time', so... hey... I guess he just didnt KNOW that there was this big huge expansion revolving around pandas in the works and decided to focus instead on promoting the cute little panda plushies.

If he'd wanted to be honest, but been unable to disclose anything, the statement would have been something to the effect of, "We are in the process of developing the next WoW expansion, but I am unable to confirm or deny its title or anything involved with it at this time."

Instead, they felt the need to deny the fact that they have, in fact, put a HUGE development effort behind a 'panda-related product', thats hard to call 'secondary', as he did.

The problem with written media is that you can't see the tone in which words are spoken in interviews and it's very easy to take things out of context for random people. Blizzard don't want to give out any hints, it's a friendly cat-and-mouse game they play with their fans (like when they added lots of random masks to the game files when the goblin/worgen ones got datamined). The comic book remark was extremely tongue in cheek, everyone knew that their trademark was filed for computer software as that was part of the public trademark, so it was blatantly intended as a joke, not to be taken seriously.