Pete Stilwell is the last member of the major development team of Warcraft III: Reforged that is leaving Blizzard Entertainment.
Pete Stillwell is the former Senior Producer of Classic Games and also with his recent departure from Blizzard Entertainment, the former Lead Producer of Warcraft III: Reforged. He was involved in the continued development of StarCraft: Remastered, Warcraft III, Diablo II, and Warcraft III: Reforged.
Pete Stillwell watched a friend play Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, but was never allowed to play it. He eventually made enough money to buy a PC (by mowing neighbors’ lawns), at which point StarCraft was released. He later played Warcraft III, which he has described as the game that made him want to work for Blizzard.
The major development team of Warcraft III: Reforged:
- Matt Morris (Lead Designer) — transferred to World of Warcraft team (when Warcraft III: Reforged was released, Matt Morris apologized for the state of the game —
https://twitter.com/Matt23Morris/status/1222660109106655232);
- Pete Stilwell (Lead Producer) — no longer at Blizzard;
- Brian Sousa (Lead Artist) — no longer at Blizzard;
- Keith Sizemore (Senior Animator) — transferred to Diablo II: Resurrected team;
- Michael Scipione (Game Designer) — no longer at Blizzard.
Most of these members appeared at BlizzCon 2019 during “Warcraft III: Reforged Deep Dive Panel”.
What we know is that they tried to create the best experience for Warcraft III, but they failed from multiple reasons (limited deadline, limited budget and limited development team).
Blizzard has also lost a lot of valuable veteran developers.
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Why did he leave?
Was he a target in that harassment lawsuit?
No, it has nothing to do with the lawsuit. He left for the same reason that most of the developers left - they couldn’t do their job properly, they were limited and the pressure and the expectantions were high. In his case, he wanted and tried to create a better game, but he had no enough resources, which Actision-Blizzard is to blame for that.
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He and his team had a great idea with reforged to make a homage and an upgrade to Warcraft 3, it’s a pity it was bad executed for the reasons you already explained. It could have revived RTS genre, the interest was high and if Blizzard keep the support to reforged i still believe they can make a good money with the game in the long run. I mean, the chinese made millions of dollars with customizations on Warcraft 3 with netease over the past 17 years.
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I have learnt to read through his lines, this guy is a genius^^
But it’s a fact, chinese gamers made millions with warcraft 3 in netease, customizing the gameplay and models, ui, maps and everything, creating new game modes and profiting with skins and models while blizzard slept over updating their own game for more than a decade. The game is still fun.
By “keep the support to reforged” i mean to keep bringing new content, new melee maps for versus mode for example or fixing the last technical issues reforged still has like making the main menu window lighter, etc… This game will be carried and improved by it’s community as it has been through all these years, so why don’t come along and try to help?
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I would not keep hoping for blizzard to keep the support. Activision calls the shots. if getting the game to how player expected it to be on release with the features already in the old game, a stable condition where it only needs a minor patch every so often costs more money than it is worth it will get canceled.
pete already left reforged pre release. it was a ship with no captain crashing into the moneybags of kotick.
I think it’s pretty sad that it’s all fallen apart almost over-night for Blizzard and Activision, and because of this, now WC 3 and HOTS are even more in risk of not being updated as well. The player-base also has to suffer with this. Blizzard’s lost a lot of experienced Devs and CEO. Blizzard potentially might not be the same anymore. They might get qualified Developers, but they’re going to be generic ones and update it in a generic way, where potential micro-transaction will become even more prominent. I mean the new Devs will most likely be hand-picked by Activision themselves.
One of the major Devs lost everything and got fired from a text message from almost 8 years ago, imagine that. Especially when you didn’t want any of your text messages put out for other prying eyes to see, and he just sounded like one of the guys. I’ve seen more horrendous text messages leaked but nothing happening to them. I get one of the guys deserved to be fired for demeanour behaviour (Alex), but that’s all it should’ve been really. Blizzard lost sponsers, millions of players and Devs. I read an article saying that they were the wives of it of most of the Devs meeting up in the after-party. I also don’t really see anything illegal about inviting hot girls to a party either, especially if it was with consent. I mean ya’ll dance to Holidae inn songs at parties and clubs and Snoop dog and Chingy still be famous.
As for the Bill Cosby suite, the guys were probably being tools and making fun of Cosby at that time, but had no idea that it would bite them on the back-side. I can’t really see them supporting Cosby or being a fan of him. Let’s be real on that one. Infact, it potentially happened before the lawsuit of Cosby happened, so it could’ve been a coincidence as well and they just took selfies in a Cosby suite. As for the case Blizzard is going through, It sounds like there were dating and hook-ups gone wrong in the Blizzard company as well, even if they were originally consented.
It’s concerning really. This is even before the verdicts been passed and people lose everything. The iconic Devs that had expert and personal knowledge in Reforged and the other games are gone. I mean what will the newly hired Dev know about Reforged? It took years for the original Devs to understand the balance and what the units are on here.
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