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  1. #1

    Xelnath, Zelnath, what happened to that guy?

    He got fired sometime in MoP, he was the guy in charge of the warlock reworks. But why did he get fired when he was so successful?

  2. #2
    He went to Riot with the rest of the Blizzard talent.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Narwhalosh Whalescream View Post
    He got fired sometime in MoP, he was the guy in charge of the warlock reworks. But why did he get fired when he was so successful?
    https://lmgtfy.com/?q=why+did+xelnath+get+fired

    Doesn't seem like a hugely difficult thing to do? I'm pretty sure he literally even posted on this forum explaining it..

  4. #4
    Herald of the Titans enigma77's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ro9ue View Post
    He went to Riot with the rest of the Blizzard talent.
    Haha ouch, but yeah.


    He's no longer with Riot though, hasn't been for several years now.
    Last edited by enigma77; 2020-06-16 at 07:38 AM.

  5. #5
    Brewmaster Uzkin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Narwhalosh Whalescream View Post
    He got fired sometime in MoP, he was the guy in charge of the warlock reworks. But why did he get fired when he was so successful?
    Basically, he made warlock too much fun so he had to go. And true enough, warlock has been quite unenjoyable ever since. His legacy, to an extent, still carried on in WoD (mostly because Blizz hadn't yet had enough time to ruin all of his designs) but by Legion and onward the process of undoing MoP warlock was complete and the warlock design had become something quite awful. I'm speaking mostly from destro perspective here, but I guess this is valid for the other specs as well. Sadly, it seems Blizz is quite happy with the status quo with destro since they plan to keep it almost unchanged -- and unfun -- also in Shadowlands.

  6. #6
    https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...-the-Community

    Here's the thread where he announced he got fired. Seems like he got mad about a design choice and complained to the players about it publicly. Unprofessional, makes sense.
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  7. #7
    Well, none of us knew what happened behind the scenes really. But from just the results perspective, he was very successful. In fact, a lot of the class designs during MoP were the peak of each respective specs.

    And the fact that the "team" decided for Cataclysm as a spell spoke clearly about them. It only works now because of its damage, but it's really a rather pointless spell back then with rain of fire being relevant. And I think a lot of power play is involved. I mean, we all knew what happened from WoD and onwards, that is clearly influenced by someone. Now they decided to "listen" because they saw a shift in the tides during the last legs of BFA. It will take a lot of work and them eating their pride to fix these specs they broke that weren't broken in the first place.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by sugarfree View Post
    Well, none of us knew what happened behind the scenes really. But from just the results perspective, he was very successful. In fact, a lot of the class designs during MoP were the peak of each respective specs.

    And the fact that the "team" decided for Cataclysm as a spell spoke clearly about them. It only works now because of its damage, but it's really a rather pointless spell back then with rain of fire being relevant. And I think a lot of power play is involved. I mean, we all knew what happened from WoD and onwards, that is clearly influenced by someone. Now they decided to "listen" because they saw a shift in the tides during the last legs of BFA. It will take a lot of work and them eating their pride to fix these specs they broke that weren't broken in the first place.
    True, MoP had really good class design, WoD was alright in that regard, but demonbolt made demonology no fun at all. And removal of dot snapshotting ruined dot specs entirely.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by AwkwardSquirtle View Post
    https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...-the-Community

    Here's the thread where he announced he got fired. Seems like he got mad about a design choice and complained to the players about it publicly. Unprofessional, makes sense.
    Unprofessionalism? No. Hell no.
    What's unprofessional is that he didn't know that Ice Block could be used while stunned, he argued that Unending Resolve is "better" than IB because mages could be stun-locked and killed while unable to use IB.

    BUT it was still the most fun era of WoW class design, so whatever you call it, to the hell with "professionalism" if that's what got us Legion and BfA...

  10. #10
    Banned docterfreeze's Avatar
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    Can't blame him, cataclysm is a terribly designed spell.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Orwell7 View Post
    Unprofessionalism? No. Hell no.
    What's unprofessional is that he didn't know that Ice Block could be used while stunned, he argued that Unending Resolve is "better" than IB because mages could be stun-locked and killed while unable to use IB.

    BUT it was still the most fun era of WoW class design, so whatever you call it, to the hell with "professionalism" if that's what got us Legion and BfA...
    wow,thats kinda crazy when your devs dont know basic game mecanics

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Narwhalosh Whalescream View Post
    True, MoP had really good class design, WoD was alright in that regard, but demonbolt made demonology no fun at all. And removal of dot snapshotting ruined dot specs entirely.
    Demonbolt = Soulfire
    Demonic Core = Molten Core

    They just renamed the abilities

  13. #13
    Immortal roahn the warlock's Avatar
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    True-facts, My friend is friends with him. He went to Riot and then put out that game on steam Orzi or something.
    It was never Hardcore Vs Casual. It was Socialites Vs. Solo players
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    World of Warcraft started life as a Computer Roleplaying Game, where part of the fun of the game experience was pretending to be your character. Stuff like applying poisons and eating food enhanced the verisimilitude of the experience of playing a fantasy character in another world. Now that game has changed to become a tactical arcade lobby game.

  14. #14
    The Lightbringer Fullmetal89's Avatar
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    He was too good for Blizzard. They guy made Warlocks actually fun to play.
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    The Unstoppable Force Lorgar Aurelian's Avatar
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    He was toxic and got upset that he didn’t get his way and got kicked to the curb because of it.

  16. #16
    The Insane rhorle's Avatar
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    He is developing his own games and consulting. He also teaches a game design course but it reads like a late night infomercial with a few thousand dollars of stuff added in for free (private think tank access, personal check ins from him).
    "Man is his own star. His acts are his angels, good or ill, While his fatal shadows walk silently beside him."-Rhyme of the Primeval Paradine AFC 54
    You know a community is bad when moderators lock a thread because "...this isnt the place to talk about it either seeing as it will get trolled..."

  17. #17
    https://xelnath.com/2018/05/15/the-m...ew-you-missed/

    He explain it himself pretty accurately here, even if he never finished that blog, we know how it end and thus can guess the reason.

    Long story short ; He took an unorthodox and clandestine take at class design by focusing on a single class and asking 6 skilled/knowledgable players to help him design that class through a secret email list. This is the inspiration for the council of the black harvest, controlled by 6 warlocks.
    Interestingly enough, it's revealed that the Blizz standard in class design at the time was to put one guy in charge of design for 3/4 classes, that's 9/12 specs designed by one person.

    Also he did Xerrath in lol.

  18. #18
    He argued about the retarded shit Blizzard does in public and they fired him.

    Was unprofessional but was one one of the more talent and dedicated people on the team, firing him made the game worse.
    Hi Sephurik

  19. #19
    He had a personal blog, Xelnath.org, very informative about a ton of cool early and late design choices in WoW (he was with the team in some form or another since TBC). As far as i know he ended up being part of the team that made Ori and The Blind Forest 2d platformer game, and i guess he's doing alright, but his crisp, fun and choice-filled rotation design for all 3 mop warlock speccs were gems that blizz has yet to surpass.

  20. #20
    Hey all, I forgot I even had a login here.

    tl;dr - I had an argument with Kalgan about Blizzard over-investing in PvP the day before and was in some hot water already. The next day some personal life stuff happened and in my frustration I vented in the linked thread about chaos bolt needing a nerf. The post was cross-shared to the blizzard forums by someone, which then got a ton of attention, it came to light that others in the company knew I'd been posting here for a while. Community didn't like that, my 2nd-off boss was upset and I when I came in Ghostcrawler politely told me that it was too much at once and it was time for me to move on. He was right

    I briefly considered delivering pizza for a while, but Zileas called first. I went to Riot, had an amazing time, made great friends, worked on a secret R&D project, including giving feedback on the first version of Legends of Runeterra. Got my life back together, finished my time at Riot, earned enough to travel Europe for a year. Ended up doing my own game. That ended when my partner John passed away. I came back to LA to take care of his personal effects and mine that were shared. Ended up staying.

    With my game done, I ended up working with Moon Studios on Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Designed some of the weapons, did a lot of the UI, the majority of the cross-game balance and XP. Also worked on a secret project not able to talk about there.

    Consulting kicked in, I ended up consulting for $2-3k a day for major clients, including former Facebookers, Wargaming, and several others. One of my roommates who did internet marketing reached out to me about doing a video game design course, so I'm trying to get that started. Appreciate the feedback on the website! I'm really trying to rely on him for what works in this high-ticket market.

    In the end, I never repaired some of the broken relationships that happened around that point in time, but I am proud to say I recruited Ghostcrawler to Riot, who in addition to basically running creative, is also helping with a certain League-themed MMO.

    You're welcome to have the opinion that I was toxic, dangerous, whatever you need. The catalyst of finally getting out of Blizzard really opened up my life and I'm so happy I did. I didn't realize how unhappy I was stuck in a mid-level design role -- or how that unhappiness was leaking into my work relationships.

    Peace friends, you all did me a solid
    -Alex
    Last edited by Xelnath; 2021-01-08 at 09:09 AM.

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