Afrasiabi left Blizzard?

[Aeula]

I don't want to speculate too hard but most of the top guys have been filtering out over the last few years. This pandemic has changed everything for everyone in every way and it would not be surprising to see more people taking the chance, especially if they are relatively financially secure to take off, and do something they've had in their mind for a while.

It's not too hard to speculate that the post-pandemic, post-Morhaime relationship between Activision and Blizzard may change. It's also not too hard to speculate that with Morhaime gone the new management team is changing some long-held things. I, for one, wouldn't mind to see him gone. He was the lead on changing the flying thing which has had people now upset for years and years. I've always thought his story beats were loud and obvious and the overall story arc was driven by "EPIC" events instead of anything sensible.

Or he could be fired.

Or it could all be a mistake and we're assuming too much. Likely the latter but if he's gone, he's not someone I would miss very much. As a creative director on an IP that's been anything but creative the last few years perhaps someone new will bring something better.

Morhaime being gone can't be understated. Usually when someone like that leaves a company there's a ton of shuffling around at the top that winds out over a period of time. Add the uncertainty of the future and a bunch of guys all worth millions it's not terribly surprising.

One last thought: For everyone that thinks that Blizzard creatively has been in a rut the last few years and think even more so for the WoW IP, you ought to be glad that they're shaking things up at the top. You aren't going to get anything risky from the same-old, same-old, management team that's brought along everything since Wrath. Whatever the case Blizzard may benefit from having some new people at the top who are less tied to the last ten years.

Yeah, with regards to the story he’s probably one of the ones I’m happiest to see the back of. Now if we could only get rid of Danuser, Golden, Copeland, Roux and the other contractors.

[GreenJesus]

Isn't this old news? I think I heard about this a while ago?

[Al Gorefiend]

The original Warcraft was thought up by the older people, the newer people are responsible for the woke Warcraft. It's a collaborative process indeed, but you'd have to be retarded to think the newer Blizzard has the same mindset as before. They have totally different goals and storylines in mind.

This makes me curious where you think the story would have went if the same people responsible for vanilla were around now.

[Aeula]

Isn't this old news? I think I heard about this a while ago?

I thought I had too, but I couldn't find anything about it.

[Drench]

Not surprising.

I can't imagine trying to carry this game if you had a soul or were not fresh to the industry. I'm sure the new guys are excited.

But man shadowlands is a beautiful beautiful game... with near mobile levels of game play now.

You will never be challenged unless you seek it out.
You will never be surprised.
You won't get excited over stats much.

It's bums me out. After legion being semi decent at certain points... I was hoping we'd get another decent one but if you take away the flashy graphics... its BFA levels again.

I know its still early and people will go raiding isnt out and not many people are 60. Thats fine and I'm sure they will be fun the first few times. I am talking from a core gameplay level that is in every aspect of the game at all times.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Lol @ people acting as if these guys are leaving due to some moral qualms.

They seemed plenty happy to remain for a long time in the growing profits.

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You will never be challenged unless you seek it out.
You will never be surprised.

Yes, because the game used to be such a challenge iN EvErY AsPeCT and there's never difficult mobs placed in the world, unlike bACk In TeH dAyS...

As someone having stayed away from the major spoilers, I've been plenty surprised. As much as I CAN be as a vet of 11 years at this point. New players are so lucky as they get to experience stuff for the first time.

This reminds me of people saying "You'll never have social interactions" or "You'll never have FUN!"... Meanwhile, in reality;

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This makes me curious where you think the story would have went if the same people responsible for vanilla were around now.

Anti-PC for sure, hating on women and minorities all the way, because let's pretend that every single one of "the old guard" is a raging bigot.

Or something like that.

Aaaand my 31 minute queue got bumped up to a 60 again. Head, meet desk.
Aaaand back to 20 minutes... Toying with my emotions, are we?

[Shadowferal]

This makes me curious where you think the story would have went if the same people responsible for vanilla were around now.

Explain WoD please.

[munkeyinorbit]

Maybe he's been involved in some #metoo stuff grabbing colleagues asses or something that forced him to leave and Blizzard sweeping it under the rug tp avoid bad publicity right before upcoming release of Shadowlands?

Tbh, firing someone for grabbing ass would be something to be publicised. "We take creating a safe work place for everyone seriously. We fired this dude who is very important. No one is above the law"

[RoKPaNda]

Cool. Blizzard needs as much fresh blood as they can get

[trapmaster]

Pretty sure he was fired, but i couldn't remember why he was fired. He won't be missed.

[Acidbaron]

Too many people get caught up in the idea that Warcraft exists within the minds of a few adult men like Metzen and Didier and any outside force is a disruption in story. WoWs storyline gets checked, crafted and approved by an entire team of people. Metzen didn't just walk up to a bunch of dorks behind computers and ramble off his storyline, it was always a collaborative process

Indeed, also give the new direction and new team a chance to establish a their direction first. Seems they are looking now what to do next and it breaks from the old and the old one wasn't without its flaws either many people seem to have forgotten quite a few odd designs.

Also read up on the interview of the last person that left, they seem to be heading in to a different progression direction regards to systems and what not

[Beloren]

Indeed, also give the new direction and new team a chance to establish a their direction first. Seems they are looking now what to do next and it breaks from the old and the old one wasn't without its flaws either many people seem to have forgotten quite a few odd designs.

New direction? again, I would just appreciate some consistency, most of the great stuff is in the earlier set up, they started messing up everything in wow. But still they also did a lot of good stuff, but many many more mistakes than before, and a lot more bad stuff than previously.

For a team of professionals that's quite bad.. or were they professionals? Almost every team in that company was world class, highly trained or developed on the job, except the writing tea - and it's the story that takes you from being a mere game to a pop fiction franchise in every home - it's the most asset. And for a game series notoriously enjoyed for it's story in it's earlier works, they totally dropped the ball on this one and is the reason why warcraft is not an entertainment household name the size of star wars, LotR and trek - and could have possibly exceeded those because they also have the stronger game market.

As a person who loves his fiction, warcraft had all the elements to make great films, tv series etc- but crappy game lore and disregard for investing it ruined that - they don't know what a rare gem they had, or if it was luck, how rare it was, and how worth it was developing for the bigger score.

Ah well, the originals creators are all long long gone. But money solves all things, so as long as activision keeps pumping in new people can coming and can do good things with it, it might not be the original thing you loved, but that doesn't mean it can't be good or enjoyable

[vincink]

Tbh, firing someone for grabbing ass would be something to be publicised. "We take creating a safe work place for everyone seriously. We fired this dude who is very important. No one is above the law"

Companies don't execute the law, so that hypothetical quote makes no sense. On that note, a company can be sued by a former employee for failing to respect the employee's privacy in the midst of litigation. This is why many sexual abuse cases are not made public. Of course, the opposite is also true, where a company can sue a former employee for breach of privacy of some sort or another. The rare exception is in certain whistle blower cases. If none of this were true, imagine the hellish landscape we'd be in if a giant company could essentially woke-cancel someone. Ouch.

[TheRevenantHero]

If they fired him, they should really fire Golden next.

[Acidbaron]

New direction? again, I would just appreciate some consistency, most of the great stuff is in the earlier set up, they started messing up everything in wow. But still they also did a lot of good stuff, but many many more mistakes than before, and a lot more bad stuff than previously.

For a team of professionals that's quite bad.. or were they professionals? Almost every team in that company was world class, highly trained or developed on the job, except the writing tea - and it's the story that takes you from being a mere game to a pop fiction franchise in every home - it's the most asset. And for a game series notoriously enjoyed for it's story in it's earlier works, they totally dropped the ball on this one and is the reason why warcraft is not an entertainment household name the size of star wars, LotR and trek - and could have possibly exceeded those because they also have the stronger game market.

As a person who loves his fiction, warcraft had all the elements to make great films, tv series etc- but crappy game lore and disregard for investing it ruined that - they don't know what a rare gem they had, or if it was luck, how rare it was, and how worth it was developing for the bigger score.

Ah well, the originals creators are all long long gone. But money solves all things, so as long as activision keeps pumping in new people can coming and can do good things with it, it might not be the original thing you loved, but that doesn't mean it can't be good or enjoyable

That's your opinion, i didn't find vanilla anything special compared to other MMO's out at the time. The setting was appealing and so was the level of bug fixes but all in all the system was rather bland and safe for an RPG. Talent trees how they used to work were also set up and forget and so on.

As for the lore there were inconsistencies in there long before Metzen left. As for the rest Warcraft is mostly a teen friendly Warhammer world but that's again your opinion why they didn't break through. I am of opinion that they didn't utilize mediums like TV correctly when they could the movie also was a bust and that didn't help, i would say that Warcraft is a fairly well know name.

So in short i fully disagree and find that people often have too much rose tinted glasses or do really enjoy games like vanilla who embrace fairly grindy and outdated systems and while vanilla has its crowd the main game has to modernize to compete in a highly competitive online environment as they are up against things like Warframe what shouldn't be underestimated.

[Drench]

Lol @ people acting as if these guys are leaving due to some moral qualms.

They seemed plenty happy to remain for a long time in the growing profits.

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Yes, because the game used to be such a challenge iN EvErY AsPeCT and there's never difficult mobs placed in the world, unlike bACk In TeH dAyS...

As someone having stayed away from the major spoilers, I've been plenty surprised. As much as I CAN be as a vet of 11 years at this point. New players are so lucky as they get to experience stuff for the first time.

This reminds me of people saying "You'll never have social interactions" or "You'll never have FUN!"... Meanwhile, in reality;

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Anti-PC for sure, hating on women and minorities all the way, because let's pretend that every single one of "the old guard" is a raging bigot.

Or something like that.

Aaaand my 31 minute queue got bumped up to a 60 again. Head, meet desk.
Aaaand back to 20 minutes... Toying with my emotions, are we?

Great job bringing up something unrelated. Bad game design is bad game design.

There is 0 challenge anywhere to be found in current wow unless you do high level mythics or get to 2200+ later on in a pvp season.


But challenge isn't everything in game design. You have this beautiful world in shadowlands, you have semi interesting quests and story arcs that build and build.

Then at the end of it... You afk dps while npcs tank something and then you kick a giant 5 second cast that might hit for 20% hp.
Rinse and repeat.

I absolutely understand the amount of work a mmo takes. There will always be tons of repetition. But still not a excuse for bad design.

You walk up right click follow a icon floating on your screen and repeat for 10 lvls. You get 99% useless gear and then once you get better gear it's just plain stats. (Its okay tho you'll be able to google a guide later on to pick the best boring legendary perks. Can't balance fun stats so its not in the game.)

What about discovery? There is none. Everything has a icon, way point, ui, light beam, npcs and a insta group for it.

Oh but dusk turn those settings off! Play without the ui.

If you have to disable stuff or look for fun in a game it has terrible design. If you have to be spoon fed even the most simple task because a company believes the average player is to dumb to understand (Prolly true nowadays.) then something is wrong.

If you need a story or a big reward to convince a player to drudge through your game... then something is wrong.


Shadowlands is sadly a big 3/10 so far because it's basically a art and music team(and some writers) carrying a team of designers that are making the game solely based off metrics and converting players into $$$.


I know your upset because its fresh and exciting. But hit me up in 2 weeks when your already over it.

Players shouldn't let blizzard shovel shit at them. You can appreciate certain things but no need to give praise where it isn't needed.

(FYI classic is only fun while leveling or gearing melee. You can get some nostalgia from the raids but they are super dated.)

[Acidbaron]

Lol @ people acting as if these guys are leaving due to some moral qualms.

They seemed plenty happy to remain for a long time in the growing profits.

- - - Updated - - -



Yes, because the game used to be such a challenge iN EvErY AsPeCT and there's never difficult mobs placed in the world, unlike bACk In TeH dAyS...

As someone having stayed away from the major spoilers, I've been plenty surprised. As much as I CAN be as a vet of 11 years at this point. New players are so lucky as they get to experience stuff for the first time.

This reminds me of people saying "You'll never have social interactions" or "You'll never have FUN!"... Meanwhile, in reality;

- - - Updated - - -



Anti-PC for sure, hating on women and minorities all the way, because let's pretend that every single one of "the old guard" is a raging bigot.

Or something like that.

Aaaand my 31 minute queue got bumped up to a 60 again. Head, meet desk.
Aaaand back to 20 minutes... Toying with my emotions, are we?

I am all for being tolerant but in today's world people have gotten far too easily offended about things that often do not even effect them personally. The whole reason people like Trump got big and democrats in the US still aren't doing better is because they cater to these PC snowflakes that can't stand a joke about anything.

I am of opinion that anything you can't laugh with or is of limits cannot be taken serious. People like Bill Hicks and George Carlin would not stand a chance today in getting a career of the ground and that should worry everybody.

Probably being sarcastic or not, too tired to tell but just putting this out there.

[Drench]

I am all for being tolerant but in today's world people have gotten far too easily offended about things that often do not even effect them personally. The whole reason people like Trump got big and democrats in the US still aren't doing better is because they cater to these PC snowflakes that can't stand a joke about anything.

I am of opinion that anything you can't laugh with or is of limits cannot be taken serious. People like Bill Hicks and George Carlin would not stand a chance today in getting a career of the ground and that should worry everybody.

Probably being sarcastic or not, too tired to tell but just putting this out there.

Truth man.

People won't be happy until we're living like demolition man or equilibrium.

RIP carlin. One of the best. I don't even agree with part of his views and he'd prolly tell me to go FK** myself and that is great. I'd respect it haha.

[Tiwack]

Probably been trying to keep a lid on this til the expansion released to protect sales. Probably split for similar reasons to Chris Kaleiki but this is all pure speculation if there's even any truth to this.

[Drench]

Probably been trying to keep a lid on this til the expansion released to protect sales.

No wow player who was at all interested in shadowlands would not buy it because they removed someone. Even if he's been there forever.

They've been leaving like that in mass over the years. I'm not even sure anymore who we have left. Can't speak for the guy and will most likely never know how he feels about any of it.