Tigole leaves WoW, Blue posts, Fan Arts

[Nathanyel]

you're speaking out of your backside, and it ain't roses.

And you're speaking out of his backside - it ain't chocolate.

[Relion]

It's quite clear that Blizzard is moving WoW into a "cash cow" stage where they will use minimal resources on it and milk it until the end, while at the same time working on a new MMO. This is obvious from all the lagging due to insufficient server resources, the release of an expansion with practically zero new raid content (TBC had brand new Kara, Gruul, Maggy, SSC, TK, while WotLK had retuned Naxx and a couple new raid bosses), and the fact that key personnel are moved to other projects.

What he said.

[wangstra]

The more I read about this dual spec addition the more bizarre it appears to me. I might be wrong and reagent costs might be minimal but so far, it doesn't seem to have helped with cutting down on the 50g we are used to paying. If our money is now flowing into regents instead of a trainer the only real benefit is the convenience of not having to reassign points. Because that was so hard.

[kartu3]

The more I read about this dual spec addition the more bizarre it appears to me. I might be wrong and reagent costs might be minimal but so far, it doesn't seem to have helped with cutting down on the 50g we are used to paying. If our money is now flowing into regents instead of a trainer the only real benefit is the convenience of not having to reassign points. Because that was so hard.

Huh?
Before it was:
portal to a city and pay a lot of money.
Now it is:
portal to a city and get it FOR FREE.
or
use a reagent which CANNOT COST MUCH (else you would again portal and respec for free)

[Nestorius]

The truth is unless you've worked with him, and I mean been in the same room with him while he's working and witnessed how he designs you have no idea how good or bad he is - you're speaking out of your backside, and it ain't roses.

As soon as you decide to give interviews, post in forums and go public at Blizzcon Raid panels, you actually step out of that same private room you refer to and you'd better think twice before speaking.
That goes with the job and if you can't handle it then you're in the wrong job.

When customers come to you at Blizzcon 2005 Raid panel and complain that they hit a brick wall at 60 and can't join 40-raids into MC (whether due to RL or simply low-pop realms or because they didn't roll a Dwarf Priest for Fear Ward a few months earlier, etc.) and you defend yourself with contempt answers such as "My mom has two level 60s and a level 40 and she gets MC invites", then you can only blame yourself for the flames you get back.

I mean : how more patronizing and belittling can you get than throwing that to the face of a customer in front of a packed audience full with medias and bloggers ?

That Tigole might be a great colleague for you but for the rest of us, he seems like an arrogant prick with zero communications skills, the kind that should not step out of back-office and talk to customers.

[Argden]

If Tigole wants to create a thread on the forums to discuss his future, and then allow a huge number of responses to it, I think he's fair game for criticism. No-one wants a lovefest where you blindly fawn over game designers. Tigole has a lot of responsibility anyway, and this has been a huge problem that he has failed to address. Doesn't do anyone any good if the buck doesn't stop with someone like Tigole.

I give credit where its due. Whoever came up with the business model they use gets a ton of credit. Its a great business model. Tigole's implementations? Not so much. I think I speak for just about every raider on the low pop realms that Tigole's raid implementations were a terrible disappointment. None of us had a shot at the end game stuff.

Sure, criticise him for the thread and its content. That's different from deciding that every thing you disagree with or didn't like is personally Tigole's fault. I'm not fan-boying him - I don't know him. I'm encouraging fairness here - you don't actually know with even the remotest degree of certainty that Tigole is responsible for any specific thing, since there are a lot of people that work on these things. Your evidence that he is personally responsible with no assistance or influence (good or bad) from the many other people that work on these things is anecdotal at best. Therefore your direct criticism of this, that and the other in such a negative way and with the arrogance you displayed is laughable.

[Argden]

And you're speaking out of his backside - it ain't chocolate.

And this comment shows a complete lack of originality, irony, and wit. I'd like to offer you a "nice try" and a gold star, but I can't even do that. Best not to post if that's all you can come up with.

[Argden]

As soon as you decide to give interviews, post in forums and go public at Blizzcon Raid panels, you actually step out of that same private room you refer to and you'd better think twice before speaking.

We have a different philosophy then. Just because you operate in a public sphere does not entitle people to criticise you for things they cannot know for sure. You can only criticise someone on what they've said publically. And this is clearly what a lot of people are not doing. To lump sole responsibility of things you don't like onto one person simply because they may have said something in a forum is short-sighted and juvenile. He wasn't working alone, he has an entire team of people working with him and you have no way of knowing or verifying what was or was not lost in translation or what were and were not entirely his ideas.

When customers come to you at Blizzcon 2005 Raid panel and complain that they hit a brick wall at 60 and can't join 40-raids into MC (whether due to RL or simply low-pop realms or because they didn't roll a Dwarf Priest for Fear Ward a few months earlier, etc.) and you defend yourself with contempt answers such as "My mom has two level 60s and a level 40 and she gets MC invites", then you can only blame yourself for the flames you get back.

I disagree. I also think you're being deliberately obtuse. If you really think this we have no need to continue this discussion and I'm happy to say let's agree to disagree. Contempt is subjective and interpreted. I'm sure there were other people at the conference that heard the same comment and heard no contempt - if you can't acknowledge that possibility then there's something wrong. Additionally, there were plenty of Horde raids that advanced without fear ward before it was given to all priests.

That Tigole might be a great colleague for you but for the rest of us, he seems like an arrogant prick with zero communications skills, the kind that should not step out of back-office and talk to customers.

None of which has any bearing on what the original poster I was replying to was criticising him for. Good confusion of the issue there, Nestorious. Practice comprehension a little more.

[Planetary]

I'd wager my left nut if you were put in charge of game design of a new MMO it wouldn't become the most highly subscribed MMO to date. Your "fix low pop servers PVE progress" idea proves that.

This goes for pretty much everyone slagging off someone they've never met or worked with personally (i.e. the desperately uninformed) - you know what they say "those who can't do something, criticise it".

The truth is unless you've worked with him, and I mean been in the same room with him while he's working and witnessed how he designs you have no idea how good or bad he is - you're speaking out of your backside, and it ain't roses. All you know is what you've witnessed as a consumer, which has 0 bearing on his abilities since you can never know how much of his design vision was truly changed along the way (or not, as they case may be).

Sad, jealous, little bastards, really.

Wrong. You can tell how good a writer is by reading her novels. You can tell how good a carpenter is by looking at his tables. You can tell how good a network designer is by booting up, logging in and using his network under high-traffic conditions.

And you can definitely tell how good a game designer is by playing his game.

Fact is, WoW is the most carefully-designed, most polished game in the MMO market, and Blizzard has grown and cultivated its subscriber base with a long history of new content, but it is not without its major flaws. Chief among them are the major timesinks, some very poorly-thought-out class mechanics, and an end-game system that has only gradually improved to strike a balance between challenge and accessibility.

We don't need to know the guy personally to know that he has a predilection for content barriers that require huge time investments to cross. Likewise, the idea that hybrids should be lesser versions of their "pure" counterparts is outdated, annoying to customers, and selfish.

So the dude likes a hardcore playstyle and loves to reminisce about his "glory days" in EQ. No one cares. WoW is the biggest MMO, the product of a publicly-traded company, and there's an obligation to strike that balance between challenging and accessible, WITHOUT stupidity such as massive time-sinks, 5% penalties for hybrids, and those ridiculous (but common) cases of nerfs/buffs resulting from players who personally know/play with the developers.

I suspect you're either a friend of Tigole or one of his biggest fanboys.

[Argden]

Wrong. You can tell how good a writer is by reading her novels. You can tell how good a carpenter is by looking at his tables. You can tell how good a network designer is by booting up, logging in and using his network under high-traffic conditions.

Good examples. I agree with you on each and every one. Where I disagree with you, and where your argument is flawed (or you're being deliberately obtuse) is that each of these endeavours is a solo one. A game designer isn't the sole worker on an endeavour such as WoW, is he? No. He has a team. A team of many tens, perhaps even closer to a hundred.

Using your own wonderful examples, let me extend it and illustrate my point a little further, since you apparently suffer from similar comprehension deficits as others posting in this thread. You hire an architect to design your house. He does. You hire builders to build it. They do. There are problems with your house when you move in. Is this the architects (designers) fault, or is it the fault of the builders (executors of the design). Food for thought.

We don't need to know the guy personally to know that he has a predilection for content barriers that require huge time investments to cross. Likewise, the idea that hybrids should be lesser versions of their "pure" counterparts is outdated, annoying to customers, and selfish.

Again, design and translation to implementation are often two very different things. Again, you have no way of knowing if the translation of the design was faithful or not, unless you have evidence or citations to the contrary. Do you?

I suspect you're either a friend of Tigole or one of his biggest fanboys.

As I've stated, I'm neither. I don't know him. However, if disbelieving me on that makes it easier for you to feel like you have the upper hand in a forum discussion in which you cannot show any objectivity whatsoever because of the certain damage it would cause to your ego, please, continue.

All I'm saying is - you don't know, you have no evidence, and your ideas about his alleged bad design are misplaced and erroneous without more data. Therefore, give the guy the benefit of the doubt - he's human too. See above example.

And if you still don't get it after that, that's fine. We can just disagree. Unless that also bruises your ego.

[Nathanyel]

Good examples. I agree with you on each and every one. Where I disagree with you, and where your argument is flawed (or you're being deliberately obtuse) is that each of these endeavours is a solo one. A game designer isn't the sole worker on an endeavour such as WoW, is he? No. He has a team. A team of many tens, perhaps even closer to a hundred.

Of course. But we know from his own statements that preferred those "hardcore" ways that Planetary mentioned, content barriers, class prejudice. So we can, in fact, blame him (and of course certain other people) for taking this "design idea" over to WoW. Even if his underlings came up with the specific details, he signed them and is thus responsible.

[Quackie]

Looks like Blizzard wants their best people working on their new MMO, which is probably D3. Or maybe Tigole doesn't see as much future in World of DKCraft, lol. Well best of luck to him on the new game. Hopefully his departure doesn't have any negative aspects that affect the game we all enjoy.

Definitely looking forward to Dualspec. I think it's really going to open up a lot of options for players and make the game that much more enjoyable. Can't wait to test it out on the PTR.

[Quackie]

The more I read about this dual spec addition the more bizarre it appears to me. I might be wrong and reagent costs might be minimal but so far, it doesn't seem to have helped with cutting down on the 50g we are used to paying. If our money is now flowing into regents instead of a trainer the only real benefit is the convenience of not having to reassign points. Because that was so hard.

I could be totally wrong since I honestly don't know, but I have to expect that the reagent costs will be extremely trivial, just like most reagents are.

Thing is, respeccing became more expensive with the introduction of glyphs. Sure you can roll with the wrong glyphs if you so choose, but it doesn't make much sense if you are in a serious raiding or pvp environment.

With the new dualspec, there's no more travel to a city. No more 50g a pop. No more buying glyphs or the mats to make them and having to LF w/e in trade. It's just a simple matter of having your glyphs and specs set up one time, having reagents on hand, and switching as needed.

Personally, I think it's a brilliant idea and I can't wait to see it implemented.

[sixkills]

The new mmo will probably be Diablo online

[Tyi]

I had the privlage of playing with Tigol in EQ, and all i can say was he was fine leader then, and has been since his involment in Wow.

When ever i see a LoS tag, im glad too know we have someone like tigol with blizzard, and look forward too his next project. Good luck bro...


Bakzal Stoneheart, Brothers of Darkness, The Nameless

[Nestorius]

(...) I also think you're being deliberately obtuse.

(...) Practice comprehension a little more.

/reflect

/moves on

Les chiens aboient, la caravane passe ...

8)

[kartu3]

I actually found Kara (pre nerf ) quite fun and challenging.