Blizzard is hiring for WoW - A bit late for Shadowlands, no?

[MoanaLisa]

Is there a merge for Classic and Retail upcoming?

No, there is not.

[Kithelle]

Alpha haven't even launched...little late would be like the beta is wrapping up in a few days

[Zentail]

Pretty harsh, just asking a bunch of pointed questions. I'll answer just one to illuminate you - Blizzard has repeatedly said that they make expansions years ahead of their launch, hence, if Shadowlands launches in October, it is late for Shadowlands, if you consider that they have been working on the game for a year or two. But it is nice to see that you just trying to attack, instead of trying to contribute to a discussion. But of course, attacking is easier

I wasn't trying to attack. I simply asked questions. Taking it as an attack means you were getting defensive over nothing. The second part of the question was to clarify the point the first question made because many people need clarification (which is fine). For your attempt at "illumination", is there any particular reason that, by your logic, Blizzard isn't hiring for the expansion following Shadowlands? There's nothing suggesting the hiring is for Shadowlands. Let's also consider for a moment that when you say "a year or two" that two years from today, we'll still be Shadowlands unless Blizzard mixes up their release schedule.

[callipygoustp]

If only their salaries were actually competitive.

[XDurionX]

A company of 300 is ALWAYS hiring.

[froschhure]

20 positions on a team of 300 is not that significant.

When it comes to numbers. okay.
But if you read in between this lines. This means that the recent team were split up and it is not good for the next Expansion.

There is no reason a company wants to search for new positions, when the new expansion is imminent.
For me this is a sign that people quit, because of things they did not approve with.

I can not see any merging between retail and classic. No indicators for that.

[Feel The Power]

Pretty harsh, just asking a bunch of pointed questions. I'll answer just one to illuminate you - Blizzard has repeatedly said that they make expansions years ahead of their launch, hence, if Shadowlands launches in October, it is late for Shadowlands, if you consider that they have been working on the game for a year or two. But it is nice to see that you just trying to attack, instead of trying to contribute to a discussion. But of course, attacking is easier

Pssst...you do realize most of what the OP asked was concerning Shadowlands though. It's also not attacking to literally reply "Why are you asking this?", and in fact; asking why someone is asking that question (especially since you clearly pointed out the well-known knowledge that Blizz works on games a year or two in advance) is probably the biggest contribution to this "discussion". Your reply to this person was far more "harsh" of an "attack" than someone asking "How does any of this have to do with Shadowlands?".

[Zmagoslav]

Were they ever not always looking for additional developers?

The play is to hire new people for lower salary then make previous employees that had higher salary "redundant".

That might work in marketing, operations, etc... but you can't really pull that with developers, as they are a rather scarce resource these days. And no, i'm not talking about HTML/CSS developers here.

[matrix123mko]

It is normal that companies hire people 24/7.

[Corroc]

When it comes to numbers. okay.
But if you read in between this lines. This means that the recent team were split up and it is not good for the next Expansion.

There is no reason a company wants to search for new positions, when the new expansion is imminent.
For me this is a sign that people quit, because of things they did not approve with.

I can not see any merging between retail and classic. No indicators for that.

I'm reading this between the lines and Blizzard is actually racking in money because they can afford to hire more people. Reading between lines is so much fun.

[FelPlague]

Source

https://careers.blizzard.com/en-us/o...raft/all/all/1

They are hiring in several KEYPOSITIONS right now and It made me quite qurious whats going on.


Is there a merge for Classic and Retail upcoming? Is the timetraveling in Shadowlands opening up later on in patches and we will see a full merge and zone picking like we will have 1-50?

Brand new type of game?

Could be for patches. Could be for the next expansion.
idk if you know, but they are not working on ONLY shadowlands right now, they are working on shadowlands and its patches, and even a bit on the next expac.

plus we are atleast 7 months away from the expac, so no its not really "a bit late"

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I am more curious if these people all quit or were fired.

or.... as they said they would.... and as they have for the last year... are expanding their dev team.

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The play is to hire new people for lower salary then make previous employees that had higher salary "redundant".

Except they havent fired devs in a very long time, and these are devs.
they fired 137 staff, none of them devs. 11 of them QA.
and their reason was "uneeded roles, we plan to hire more devs" which they have been, and well continue to do obviously.

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Blizzard has sadly become a bit of a revolving door studio. They pay less then the industry standard for most positions. I imagine they are always hiring.

Very little if any of that is true... Look above for some actual stuff.

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When it comes to numbers. okay.
But if you read in between this lines. This means that the recent team were split up and it is not good for the next Expansion.

There is no reason a company wants to search for new positions, when the new expansion is imminent.
For me this is a sign that people quit, because of things they did not approve with.

I can not see any merging between retail and classic. No indicators for that.

no, it means they are hiring more devs, as they said they would be, and have been for the last year, every few weeks ive been seeing blizz hiring like 4-5 roles, been seeing it tons on twitter of the blizz devs i follow "we are hiring come join us!"

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30 to 60 days to hire, 90 days ramp up, probably resizing for 9.1. I doubt they'd be hiring for 9.0 unless 9.0 is coming late.

"30-60 days+90 days"
that is 150 days. so 5 months.
Shadowlands is atleast 6 months away, so nah might work on 9.0, who knows.

[Lolites]

When it comes to numbers. okay.
But if you read in between this lines. This means that the recent team were split up and it is not good for the next Expansion.

There is no reason a company wants to search for new positions, when the new expansion is imminent.
For me this is a sign that people quit, because of things they did not approve with.

or they hire more people to work on FUTURE content (patches, next expansion) to avoid the fucked up timing of BFA?
just a thought, or do we have to jump to doom and gloom again?

[apples]

more proof that blizzard is trying to kill wow and failing at that. blizzard is so incompetent that they cant even be incompetent correctly and instead of killing their game theyre successfully running a multibillion dollar company

smh

[callipygoustp]

30 to 60 days to hire, 90 days ramp up, probably resizing for 9.1. I doubt they'd be hiring for 9.0 unless 9.0 is coming late.

90 days ramp up? WTF. Where is that the case ANYWHERE in the software industry. On average I would say a new dev, in my 29 years of experience, takes a couple weeks to get up to speed on their project duties. 90 days? Three months? wtf. I say again: W T F. If you're not doing your job with in... I'll be generous and say four weeks, you're gone.

[Monster Hunter]

Source

https://careers.blizzard.com/en-us/o...raft/all/all/1

They are hiring in several KEYPOSITIONS right now and It made me quite qurious whats going on.


Is there a merge for Classic and Retail upcoming? Is the timetraveling in Shadowlands opening up later on in patches and we will see a full merge and zone picking like we will have 1-50?

Brand new type of game?

There mostly engineering roles,

Games can be broken down into 3 rough areas

Engine and tools: that's where the "real" programming happens they often work well in advance laying down the ability of the other roles to do there jobs, adding to the engine, making tools, brining support for incoming tech, graphics support e.t.c

Games design and development: these are the dudes that use the tools the engineers made to design and implement usualy in a tool with some scripting like lua the levels, dongeons, quests, the decided the tuning and all that jazz.

Artists, they produce the assets, visual and audio the designers request for them to be able to use in there levels and such.

What the hiring tells me is blizz are after a few key roles for design and art. Probly to accelerate development during SL. Path cycles yada yada.

The curious part is the big engineering hire, that's more a sign of some bigger changes possibly to the tools or engine in the future, but such work is likely 2+ or more years from us seeing it.

Probly more than 2 as those roles won't be filled fast, software engineers are allready in short supply generally and alot of those engineering roles are looking for c/c++ experience. And that's an ever shrinking pool nowadays.

[ls-]

That might work in marketing, operations, etc... but you can't really pull that with developers, as they are a rather scarce resource these days. And no, i'm not talking about HTML/CSS developers here.

You can actually pull it off when it comes to game developers, they're paid way less than software engineers that work in other fields/industries. And then even among game devs Blizz are known for underpaying because "you can't put a price on prestige" and "you'll also get a sword trophy if you work long enough for us". Basically, for a programmer to work in gamedev you have to either be extremely passionate about making games or be not skilled enough to work elsewhere, both of these reasons are used to actually pay people less and to make them work more than devs in other fields.

[Radioactive]

World revamp confirmed

[Kolvarg]

It may not be anything beyond the normal hiring cycle for an expansion, but if what we saw at Blizzcon is a guide and the alpha coming out later than normal, if blizzard wants to meet a Oct/Nov launch window, they do need to staff up some as well.

Hell, Activision-Blizzard did say the intent was to staff up on the development side to get content out faster.

Well, they "staffed up" for WoD and that didn't go very well. Meaning they actually produced content slower because they had to spend the time training and mentoring new employees, I vaguely recall reading a post or interview about that. But then again we have no idea how many new hired people they had then vs now.

Is there a merge for Classic and Retail upcoming?

How do you even see that happening? The games work on an entirely different basis.

The only thing I could see them doing would be restoring the 1-60 content to its Classic stats (player and mob hp values, mana values, etc), and then matching all other expansions to a similar experience. Even then the level scaling system would royally mess that up and it would still feel nothing like Classic.


If I had to guess I'd say this is both part of their process of increasing the dev team, and also replacing positions of people who moved on to other companies after all the recent drama surrounding Blizzard. Whether this will have any noticeable effect on Shadowlands or its release date remains to be seen, ultimately these are only a few positions in a team of hundreds. Personally I would think the fact that they aren't being very inovative/bold with features this expansion (and no new class/race) can be indicative that they are already accounting for internal slower development / being late.

[MatadorMedia]

Blizzard regularly has job openings like these. Unless they are listed as priority - which they do not seem to be - then they are not urgently needed staff members. They can roll in any time in the next year.

[froschhure]

And Blizzard is a company of 5000+
WoW team is couple of hundred (can't be arsed to look up the exact number).

20 new head counts in a team of 300 is actually pretty significant increase in budget, but we don't actually know if these are added headcounts or natural replacements.
Most likely combination of both.

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You don't know if these are replacements or new added headcounts. So don't read between the lines. Read the lines.
There's no need to start spinning conspiracies.

uhm, i never said a thing about conspiracies. Please.

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i can understand your frustration here. But i am not the target. It is my Interpretation, how i see things. Let us see what time will bring.