More Senior Staff Leaving

[Paula Deen]

red flag for the company. something is really going down over there.

No it isn't. Not even close. If I pulled up charts for Rockstar, as an example, you would shit the bed at how much talent they lose after a release. Its burnout. It happens on nearly every project, OP himself said that.

[DJ117]

I am worried. The people leaving have been there from the time of Warcraft and the initial expansions. They built the vision and world. I don't trust the new people to keep the ship afloat. It's too early in legion for all the old employees to leave.

[Gadzooks]

but I think it's probably a sign that this will be a period of great change within the respective teams.

This. I worked at a company where the CEO, who everyone loved, retired. The new CEO, while a good guy and very capable, was not the choice of several people in upper management, and they left shortly after the old CEO retired. We, as a company, continued to grow and profit, but the ones that left just didn't think they'd fit in the new regime. Waugh may not want to work on the current lore without Metzen, and doesn't get along with Kosak. Could be anything.

I'm curious what the blueprint for the future is, a lot of games are getting moldy - Starcraft is basically in maintenance mode, D3 as well, HOTS is close to that. The only games really getting attention are WoW, Hearthstone and Overwatch.

You're going to lose people, when all there is to do is patches and maintenance. They want to get their hands on new and shiny, and there's not much of that at Blizzard right now, that we know of.

[Deleted]

Whats the draw for a LoL mmo though? There's no heavy emotional investment leading in, the market is saturated as is, the subscription model is kinda dead, and it's a shitton of work to support an mmo. They're making money hand over fist churning out champs to run around on their 2(3?) maps. I mean i gues there are other options but I cant think of any right now. Guess we'll find out.

If there is one company who could pull off an mmo to truly challenge WoW, it would be from Riot Games.

[segara82]

This. I worked at a company where the CEO, who everyone loved, retired. The new CEO, while a good guy and very capable, was not the choice of several people in upper management, and they left shortly after the old CEO retired. We, as a company, continued to grow and profit, but the ones that left just didn't think they'd fit in the new regime. Waugh may not want to work on the current lore without Metzen, and doesn't get along with Kosak. Could be anything.

I'm curious what the blueprint for the future is, a lot of games are getting moldy - Starcraft is basically in maintenance mode, D3 as well, HOTS is close to that. The only games really getting attention are WoW, Hearthstone and Overwatch.

You're going to lose people, when all there is to do is patches and maintenance. They want to get their hands on new and shiny, and there's not much of that at Blizzard right now, that we know of.

I agree for the most, except for their IPs: StarCraft is done, simple as that. Diablo is done too unless hell somehow gets a new big Evil (we took care of the 8 named ones and a few angels). WoW has been shrinking, the bad management of WoD further pushed that. And HotS and OW are nice but one can say just reskins of existing (and saturated) games.
IMO they should crank out a new IP or make better use of their existing ones. Otherwise they will get into trouble.

[nazrakin]

No it isn't. Not even close. If I pulled up charts for Rockstar, as an example, you would shit the bed at how much talent they lose after a release. Its burnout. It happens on nearly every project, OP himself said that.

Exactly. Same thing happened with Witcher 3, some of their lead people left before the game was even out. And even those still there have made no bones about being happy they can take a break from making Witcher. 10+ years of working on the same game/franchise starts to wear on people.

[Gadzooks]

If there is one company who could pull off an mmo to truly challenge WoW, it would be from Riot Games.

Why? They don't have much experience outside of the games they have, and they'd have to build a whole new onfrastructure to do world -building.

I'd be more interested in RockStar or Ubisoft entering the MMO space, along with Bethesda and the peope who made Witcher. They all have tons of experience world building, quest building, and coop play.

[Barnabas]

They leave for more money or they are bored. Nothing really else to it.

[Paula Deen]

Why? They don't have much experience outside of the games they have, and they'd have to build a whole new onfrastructure to do world -building.

I'd be more interested in RockStar or Ubisoft entering the MMO space, along with Bethesda and the peope who made Witcher. They all have tons of experience world building, quest building, and coop play.

Rockstar would be akin to a F2P Game if GTAO is any indication and if The Division is any indication, Ubisoft should stay away.

[The Stormbringer]

Can they hire GoldenYak already then?

Fucking yes. Dude has already come up with so many good ideas!

[americandavey]

Why? They don't have much experience outside of the games they have, and they'd have to build a whole new onfrastructure to do world -building.

I'd be more interested in RockStar or Ubisoft entering the MMO space, along with Bethesda and the peope who made Witcher. They all have tons of experience world building, quest building, and coop play.

Bethesda already in the MMO business. Making a AAA MMO is not a money maker, no company is going to spend millions to make something that people will barely play a month and go somewhere else. Maybe 5 years ago, Companies would jump at making an MMO to see if they could get that 2004 WoW luck.

And NO, Rockstar should stick with what they do. They and Take2 make more money that way.

[Gaidax]

They got better deal or wanted to move on and were asked to wait until Legion ships.

It's standard practice really.

[Deleted]

If there is one company who could pull off an mmo to truly challenge WoW, it would be from Riot Games.

Who never even ventured into anything remotely resembling an MMO.

The situation is entirely different from 2004 when a developer without an MMO background could create the most successful MMO of all times. The genre has matured to the point that it probably can't evolve much further.

[Acidbaron]

If they all remained and the game would have gotten predictable and stale people would ask for more new blood.

These are often people who worked years not for just the same company but on the same project, they aren't the sole contributors either there are whole teams around.
Now the only thing you should worry about is the communication to the community if those people were doing that a lot previously the new people stepping up might not.

Also blizzard won't let WoW go under the current investment and concern of how WoD effected the playerbase numbers is sign of that, as wow is their main source of income and it's a market position they want to keep in an ever increasing competitive F2P/B2P setting.

[Deleted]

People said it was going to be the end of everything blizzard related when Ghostcrawler left.

This wont change jack shit.

[Deleted]

All we need is Ion.

[Gaucho-]

People said it was going to be the end of everything blizzard related when Ghostcrawler left.

This wont change jack shit.

Ghostcrawler's departure changed the player to dev communication dramatically. @WarcraftDevs is piloted by CMs if you closely read what Lore is writing.

[PenguinChan]

Happened after an expansion was finally released and finished. This is in no way surprising, considering that is when people tend to quit or get laid off. The fact they are seniors actually makes it less shocking. They have been in the industry for very long periods of time, so them going somewhere else or up and leaving the industry isn't really that hard to believe. It's really interesting when a game developer actually stays in it and continues to develop stuff. They have some stalwart willpower and love for the creation process.

[Az0na]

Who realy cares, I play comming 18 months for free anyway, see after that if game got beter or worse, or gone by then :>

People come and go with jobs every day, nothing special.

[DesoPL]

Tyson Murphy and Riot Games? Good i don't play LoL anymore.

Anyway. I start getting feeling, that WoW someday may end like Firefall.