An Apology to the Community

[Arrowspace]

This saddens me greatly.

I now regret that I was completely unaware until very recently that a Blizzard dev had been both reading and posting on MMO-C's warlock forums.

I suppose it was foolish of me to believe that the official MOP Beta forums would be the best way to be heard by Blizzard...and I found the lackluster communication through those forums to be extremely disappointing and frustrating. Now that I've seen how Blizzard treated Xelnath for posting here, it explains a lot. I was barely logging in once a week near the end of Cataclysm, and my sub only continued because of the Annual Pass on my account. Had I known then that Xelnath was active on these forums and communicating so closely with warlocks (compared to Blizzard's just-plain-awful communication with warlocks in the past, this must have been like a warlock's wet dream), I'd have probably been a lot more excited for MOP than I actually was.

And I fail to see how making your players feel excited, appreciated, and listened to is a bad thing. Ridiculous.

Good luck going forward Xelnath, and thank you for fighting for the future of warlocks when it seems no-one else on the team would dare to.

[Billy Idol]

Xelnath Keep your head high and good luck.

[Naojirou]

It would never come in my mind to say that but...
I'd rather seeing a pageful of nerfs instead of this.

[Lulbalance]

if he wasn't a dev, it was the best troll this forum has ever seen.

either way, cheers dude.

[Hermanni]

I didn't see this until now but I'm sorry about how this turned out.

I wanted to thank you for your efforts as a game designer and the extent at which you reached out to the community in order to give us the best possible game experience. In 7 years this class never felt better, and I'm sure it would have continued to get better with you in charge. I can only imagine how frustrating it is to have other people drag you down, and I hope you'll find a company that will appreciate your ability to design content and reach out to the community. As long as it's not Riot. Just kidding, Riot's fine too.

[Deleted]

Good luck Xel, thanks for everything

[Farabee]

Xel,

I've actually enjoyed playing my warlock alt for the first time since its heyday in BC with this xpac. Hope the rest of the dev team don't work hard to undo your good deeds.

[chrisisvacant]

Perhaps, Blizzard would have been better served, spending that energy and time on Security. Instead of going overboard on one person. (Dev's do what they do, being "yes" men isn't one of them) When your product is so screwed you're forced to have some absurd "authenticator" to log in. Fix your $h!t, Bizzard, and stop going mental over direct employee assessment of your new screw-ups. This is why we've stopped playing. Rift had more to offer. Better grfx. Better security. Less people with the IQ of a rock. And the list is growing. Hey, Alex..just go work for Trion. =)

You've no idea what you are talking about. Account security is the responsibility of the account holder.

[Voidgazer]

MoP is turning out to be the best expansion for Warlocks (my favorite class since forever) so far, and it's happening (at least partially) thanks to Xelnath.

And I have been completely unaware of his hard work (or even existance for this matter) until it was too late. I even managed to say some stupid things to him, without realizing that.

I feel so bad right now...

[Xelnath]

Hey guys,

I won't be posting here anymore, but for those curious, I accepted a position at Riot Games and will be starting there today.

I spoke with a few friends at Blizzard and the guy taking over Warlocks is the same guy who brought a lot of love to Mages, Monks and Druids, plays more WoW than anyone else I know and I believe he'll take good care of you guys.

Thank you for being my crash course in community relationship building - for both good and bad - and I think you'll all love what Rob Pardo's been talking about on his Twitter feed.

Goodbye,
Xelnath

[Phoenexis]

Good luck Xelnath, thank you for everything, sincerely. We couldn't be happier for you.

[Deleted]

Thanks & good luck !

PS: I love playing the new Destruction

[andgeres]

Thank you for the last insider info. Good luck - I'm sure you'll manage well at Riot Games.

[Nerraw]

Thanks for all you've done for us, and good luck at Riot!

[Jessicka]

Congrats on the swift move onwards, good luck at Riot, and thanks for all your feedback and discussion here.

[Rustjive]

I accepted a position at Riot Games

There was no doubt in my mind that this was the place for you. Good luck to you in all your future endeavors.

[smegdawg]

Grats on the new job!

Here's hoping warlock continue in the direction you helped set us on.

Later dude.

[Crack the Sky]

Hey guys,

I won't be posting here anymore, but for those curious, I accepted a position at Riot Games and will be starting there today.

I spoke with a few friends at Blizzard and the guy taking over Warlocks is the same guy who brought a lot of love to Mages, Monks and Druids, plays more WoW than anyone else I know and I believe he'll take good care of you guys.

Thank you for being my crash course in community relationship building - for both good and bad - and I think you'll all love what Rob Pardo's been talking about on his Twitter feed.

Goodbye,
Xelnath

Congrats man, happy for you. Much love here for Riot, ty for everything.

[CDShaidar]

I spoke with a few friends at Blizzard and the guy taking over Warlocks is the same guy who brought a lot of love to Mages, Monks and Druids, plays more WoW than anyone else I know and I believe he'll take good care of you guys.

Congratulations on the new position, any chance this new guy would like to introduce himself to us on these boards or are we going to be in the dark from here on out as we've feared?

[Deleted]

Congratulations on the new position, any chance this new guy would like to introduce himself to us on these boards or are we going to be in the dark from here on out as we've feared?

I'd be surprised, being too friendly seems to have been a contributing factor in losing Xelnath his job, I doubt a dev in the same position would do likewise, especially not so recently after what happened.

Goodluck at Riot Xel, I can't say I like everything that you brought to warlocks - malefic grasp can bugger off, but your love for the class and good intentions were always clear - be nice if blizz as a whole would adopt a similar policy to the one you deployed, wish you were still around, I almost regret not playing LOL.