Intresting news in my opinion, what do you think? (New senior designer at Blizzard)

[Dezminion]

http://www.mmogames.com/gamenews/435...orld-warcraft/


Edit:

Yeah Phookah, was just in a hurry to put this here and watching Finland - Russia Icehockey at the same time.

My own opinion is that this kind of change has a higher chance to be a big success than a failure. Fresh blood is something that WoW is in desperate need at the moment.
But not in the form of Celestalon....(That class balancing / ability prunning......)

Personaly I have high hopes for this, lets hope for the best

[Bosen]

This is great news. Thank you.

[Phookah]

How about a few words on the article you just linked?\
Nothing to say about his really, I don't know any of his work.
Could be good, could be bad.

[DarthMonk79]

Never really played Everquest, but if he's better than current lead designer, this is awesome. Anything to improve the game come next expansion is a plus. WoD wasn't horrible but it wasn't great either, even with everything 6.2 is bringing in I'm mostly just looking forward to next expansion. Come on Blizz, wow us.

[Rageroar]

EQ Next looks promising, hopefully he will do some good at Blizzard.

[Wrathonia]

Steve "Moorgard" Danuser is now Senior Designer for World of Warcraft.

Further reshuffles are occurring in the MMO gaming industry as it appears that the former Lead Content Designer for EverQuest Next – Steve “Moorgard” Danuser – has found longterm employment with a great studio and we couldn’t be more excited for him!

Moorgard has taken up the position of Senior Designer on Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, beginning a new phase of his gaming career, which he explains in his announcement blog post:

“Phase one was starting at SOE back in 2003. Phase two was helping found 38 Studios in 2006. Phase three was my return to SOE in 2012. Phase four begins now, in May of 2015.”

And also talking about his feelings on the position itself:

“..it’s a thrill to go to work on the most successful title my favorite genre has ever seen. It will be a huge honor and challenge to try to make my own mark on the game.”

With plenty of fantastic ideas for EverQuest Next in the past, Moorgard is sure to bring some great stuff to World of Warcraft’s table and with Warcraft’s stories going off into new directions, a fresh face with so much passion for fantasy MMORPGs is just what Blizzard Entertainment needs going forward.

Just one request, Moorgard? Please play a Tauren. The puns are too good to miss.

The article in question.

[TheTaurenOrc]

So who in the Food Chain is he replacing and who is he 'above' so to speak? Just to get some context.

[dope_danny]

So who in the Food Chain is he replacing and who is he 'above' so to speak? Just to get some context.

Well either hes taken a lower job or chiltons been 'reassigned to other projects'.

[TheTaurenOrc]

Well either hes taken a lower job or chiltons been 'reassigned to other projects'.

Looking at WoD's credits for reference I don't see a Senior Designer position: http://media.mmo-champion.com/images...edits_Wod.html

If I had to guess I would say its in between:

Game Director:Tom Chilton

and

Lead Game Designers: Luis Barriga, Ion Hazzikostas, Cory Stockton

Pretty far up the ladder. Hopefully it with shackup the guys at the top.

EDIT: looking at glass door it would appear that Senior Designer is a pay bracket bellow Lead Designer. So a little further down the chain.

[Amorac]

Not sure, but doesnt senior just mean "more experienced"? IE, there can be a lot of senior designers not just 1?

[MoanaLisa]

Senior Game Designers report to Lead Game Designers I think. He's in a good place though and it's good to see Blizzard picking off the best people available from the now-flaming wreck that is EQ Next.

[Thage]

Senior Game Designers report to Lead Game Designers I think. He's in a good place though and it's good to see Blizzard picking off the best people available from the now-flaming wreck that is EQ Next.

What happened to EQ Next?

Also, if this guy's better than Chilton and Afrasiabi, then welcome aboard, dude. You physically can't make a worse expansion than WoD for casual players, so you've got that goin' for you.

[Wrathonia]

What happened to EQ Next?

Also, if this guy's better than Chilton and Afrasiabi, then welcome aboard, dude. You physically can't make a worse expansion than WoD for casual players, so you've got that goin' for you.

Lord only knows. SOE got changed to Daybreak studios and dumped some of their biggest name employees. If it ever does see the light of day, I'm betting 2020 at the earliest.

[Thage]

Lord only knows. SOE got changed to Daybreak studios and dumped some of their biggest name employees. If it ever does see the light of day, I'm betting 2020 at the earliest.

Oh. Eh. Well, like I said. He can't do a worse job than Chilton and Afrasiabi did with WoD, so.

[SylviaDragon]

oh wow. I got really interested and excited about EQN. I climbed onto the hype train just days before the big daybreak announcement and his departure from the team. EQN has been really, really quiet ever since and the game looks to be years from seeing a release date. Thought that was the last i was going to hear of this guy. Pretty surprising he popped back up on the map so soon and in wow no less.
kind of gives the game a ray of hope. I doubt he could actually make things any worse than they are right now so i await the changes he brings with curiosity. We could use the new blood and the Everquest games are a well respected place to be coming from for sure. welcome to the team.

[MoanaLisa]

What happened to EQ Next?

Sony Online Entertainment was sold off to an investment management firm, Columbus Nova, and then renamed Daybreak Game Company. Most of the main faces of EQ Next were laid off and since then there's been practically no news of it. There is a great deal of doubt that a game studio being sold to an investment management firm is anything good for gaming. EQ Next appears to be about as dead as a title can be at the moment. Apart from the layoffs there's been a quiet but relatively steady stream of people leaving so it's difficult to imagine that the game as originally conceived is ever going to see the light of day.

As for Landmark, the other piece of EQ:N, it looks as if development there has been largely halted. So there's a lot of talent out there, some of it quite good. Blizzard can probably have their choice of the best of that.

As long as Chilton stays as game director you won't see a lot of changes. As for Afrasiabi, he's been there forever, is one of the old guard and is unlikely to be leaving or anything. I do lean toward the idea that the game could use a shakeup but that's what WoD was so people should be careful about what they wish for.

[Every Pwny]

New blood is definitely needed in Blizzard. But I don't know if him being there will change much. I don't think they can do anything drastically different mainly because of how old the game is, but we'll see. It seems like he won't make much of an impact until maybe even the expansion after next (they said the next expansion was feature complete). But we'll see if this changes anything in a few years.

[TheWindWalker]

I do lean toward the idea that the game could use a shakeup but that's what WoD was so people should be careful about what they wish for.

I'll have to disagree with you on WoD being a "shake up." It carried over the QoL changes from the previous expansions and really only the Garrison is technically a huge change. The specs play almost identically, there's still dailies (horribly designed ones but still), there's still dungeons (with no reason to run them but still), there's still the same kind of raids with the same kind of mechanics we've been dealing with, so it's not really a huge leap from Mists.

Giving the game a good "shake up" for me would be redesigning the specs and dropping the baggage they're still carrying after the rather minimalistic pruning attempt. The closest they've gotten lately is the Fury change in which they legitimately stated "we want this to feel like its theme" and did a fairly good job, all things considered, and despite that will continue to receive fairly passionate disagreements on the changes as a whole as it's now a cultural faux pas. Like getting an 80 year old a european sports car with far more horsepower and performance for the price when they wanted a "new mustang that doesn't look or act any different" despite complaining about that mustang for years. They're just going to have to put on their war faces, walk out on stage, and say "We're going to take these classes apart, rebuild them, and you're going to either love yours or find something to love in another one."

[ro9ue]

So who in the Food Chain is he replacing and who is he 'above' so to speak? Just to get some context.

Doesn't necessarily need to be replacing anyone. They have more than one senior designer and more than one lead.

[Dejablue]

We will have to see what he does. His experience looks to be similar to Metzen's, so he may be working to that end. He has great community management and communication skills as well as direction and management skills.

He was directly responsible for directing Kingdom of Amalur and was also working on Project Copernicus, an ambitious MMO.

I first knew of this guy in Vanguard. He was responsible for making it the most successful it ever was. SOE inherited a failure of an MMO and this guy came in, implemented the "lost" patches, the final raid zone (City of Brass) and made the game actually start having players and generate money, albeit not enough to keep it afloat.

He took a failed game and almost did the impossible.

He was also very active on the forums and spoke directly to the players. Very intelligent and very insightful and honest about the limitations and realities of what was literally possible and where his intended direction was headed.

If he can help Blizzard with insight into what worked for Vanguard, if he can help do for WoW what he did for Vanguard, we are in store for a great resurgence of WoW.