He is the real deal, good for him. 
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Better than the two temper tantrum raging EQ raiders that were hired for WoW back in the day.
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Another sign SSF is coming to D4.
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I don’t pry but i hope to see good things especially for D4.
I am not sure what team he will be on. I feel like we have one of our own on the inside now. I know he is into game mechanics and not so much the lore. He also likes solo play. If MissC is reading this she might know more I believe she knows him. He dose not post on the forum that much.
I do but he kept it quite secret until today and I don’t know which team he is on.
If you did not see, John Yang (item and systems designer for multiple games including D3, has left Blizz today after a decade). I wish him the best new adventures!
I am super excited to see how Levi does too. He has wanted this for a very very very long time. I am really happy for him.
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It’s possible the D4 team needs someone to represent them in front of the community sharing more details about their game development plans than the CMs. So, he’d fit perfectly in that spot since he’s a known streamer that wants to do game dev too.
He will be fine of course. I mean he at least must have some minimum knowledge about Diablo and aRPGs.
His education background has nothing to do with gaming, but his personal interests and years of deep dive gaming and theory crafting certainly have given him some experience. He is in an Associate Game Designer role which is a fantastic learning place. The Diablo team is quite supportive and helpful if memory serves. He should have some awesome mentors to help him on his new journey.
He has lots and lots of Diablo specific experience so is very familiar with the franchise.
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That’s exactly what I meant, yes. He’d be fine.
Unless he knows how to program or design he most likely be learning while advising with level design, character skill design, item/affix design, encounter design. I sure he’s there, with all that mechanical game knowledge to help overall where it’s needed in the non art/lore areas.
Misread your comment.
OK.
Never heard of the person.
So, good on you for getting a partial dream realized.
Yay.
I guess.
What I know about him is he was interested in organizing a D3 SSF league at the old forums. Seems like a nice guy. Better him than some random cat.
Yes, this notion that no one understands a game better than its top competitors? They may understand a fraction of it mechanically, sure, the fraction that they need to focus on to stay on top. But as far as conceptually, why it’s fun? I hope this notion finally gets discarded. I mean, whoever heard of a dev team being world-class competitors?
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Having people who are deeply invested in a small part of a game (such as hardcore streamers often are), come in and design the game, can be both good and bad. They have knowledge, but might lack perspective.
But in this case, it might mostly be good. Blizzard desperately seem in need of people who understand A-RPGs as a genre (which I dont know if Leviathan does, I dont really know who he is, other than having seen his name mentioned around here sometimes).
At least that sounds very positive!
He does a lot of very informative youtube videos. just search “diablo 3 leviathan” if you want to see one.
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He was also the co-host of Westmarch Workshop and is always on the leader boards without having to be carried by others. From the dealings that I have had with him I found him to be a very smart and passionate Diablo player. Like I said before he is not into the lore. I do not know anything about his programming background. I am just happy that a player is on the team. I wish him all the best and hope that he can deal with all of the BS at Blizzard. If some people think that they can do better put your application in and show us how it’s done.
when I came back to the game after quitting in 2012, he was one of the top search results that came up along with 2 others… I watch is SSF HC streams and based on that I think he will do fine.
Sometimes people outside do not understand what happens inside… we really do not know this guys background, I guess with the internet we can google.
Associate to us is entry level, but to him, maybe a foot in the door.
It’s complex. You need a lot of things to push the genre further. Surely, being a top player helps. Having fun while playing helps too. Understanding the aRPG systems is absolutely crucial. Making the step from the current known systems to the next-gen is the most interesting and hard to do task. For that one needs to be bold and sure in himself, because the community will be critical to crucial changes due to fear of new concepts and the inability to perceive the results of such potential changes. Does Blizzard have such bold people in their Diablo team?
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Hmmm - I’m sorry to see Mr. Yang leave, best wishes to him.
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