A Reflection, A Plea, and Most of All a Message of Gratitude to Blizzard

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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Dear Blizzard (See Note_1*),

This is a reflection, some business advice for you to keep earning money, a plea, and most of all, a message of gratitude.

Thanks for designing such an amazing game. Wait, it’s NOT a game. It’s a world of achievement and progress and accomplishment and global social interaction of questing and progress.

For the purposes of this post, henceforth, “Our World” will refer to the video game of World of Warcraft. (See Note_2*).

I couldn’t studied physics and learned the intricacies of the real universe. But Richard Feynman already did that, lived that and loved that in a more advanced way and with more passion than I ever could have. Maybe I’m like the Richard Feynman of WoW. LOL!

That said, I love the game. Please. Please. Please keep WoW Classic just as it is. Minor {as in 0.00032) type patches are fine. But face it, the Blizzard team crafted a masterpiece. I love Our World and millions of others too. You could go as far as to say that Our World is art….but I’m not that cheesy. It’s science!!! :smiley:

I and so many other players love WoW Classic. The best thing is with your business, MMORPG, coding, leveling, video game, franchise, and service that you provide to millions of fans ranging from the game is their life to the casual affionado, is that you HAVE a whole separate “retail” version to add whole new expansions and more realms for those who seek that kind of novelty. For me, it’s the structured rules of the WoW Classic world that I love. Entirely new realms and new expansions and new swooping changes are for some people what the game is all about. For those people, fine. Let them play that.

Now, I want you to be successful, Blizzard. Therefore I encourage you to keep adding entirely new dungeons and realms and level caps to expansions in RETAIL, NOT in Classic. There WILL be subscribers to WoW who want retail and new expansions. So keep doing that. But there will always be copious avid committed subscribers to WoW Classic, too. Just let classic set and let its players enjoy it while the retail players can enjoy that.

KEEP WOW CLASSIC AND RETAIL SEPARATE. DON’T START ADDING EXPANSIONS TO WOW CLASSIC!!

That’s it, Blizzard. Thanks for making Our World (my fave game in the Universe). I was co-captain in Soccer too and WoW Battlegrounds could be more fun than soccer. No, wait…they are. (But ONLY in Classic).

Thanks for keeping WoW Classic as it is. Yes, with all 51 talent points and all other things that make classic great and complex and unique (See Note_3*)

*Note_1: When I refer to “Blizzard” I really do mean the entire company from the graphics designers who designed the tooltip icons to the map designers and implementers to the CEO to the whole team. I mean everyone.

*Note_2: Please don’t change the title of World of Warcraft to anything else. It would get despicably cheesy. WoW is fine.

*Note_3: I utterly despised how the intricate beauty of the 51 talent tree added subtle customization to every character got simplified in the expansions. I think it’s blatantly lucid that I despised the expansions, but I played through the 4th (I lost track of the names after MoP and couldn’t be bothered to look them up) one or so (only really active through BC though), but I bought and played subsequent ones. Lost track because they weren’t fun for me, nor for select players who Love Wow Classic, like I do.

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As far as I know, only one person from the original Dev team still works at Blizzard. The Art Director. So the Blizzard you’re talking to had nothing to do with making this game you love.

They did make the trashfire that is retail though.

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There’s still a ton of people that worked on Vanilla that are working on WoW. I know that doesn’t fit your disdain filled narrative but facts are facts.

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All aboard the BC train to a better future!

Choo choo!

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As far as I know, only one person from the original Dev team still works at Blizzard. The Art Director.

Fascinating, but I am actually dubious of this. I didn’t expect such a high turnover rate of employment at blizz. What’s your source? Where did you learn only the original dev director is only original on the team?

Thanks for the reply, mate!

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EDIT: Ah, I see what you did there. … fair enough.

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It’s not really surprising, as the atmosphere of Blizzard is radically different than it used to be. They’ve also been slowly phasing out the veterans, by either making their position redundant or pushing them into retirement.

Russell Brower, basically the biggest part of the Art & Sound team who was always held in very high regard, was laid off for example.

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How many people actually don’t uncheck the music box? This sort of makes sense in my opinion, as 안타깝다 as that may be.

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A lot of people I imagine keep the game music on when it’s new. Plus, I imagine it’s not just music.

Blizzard’s art & music department has never really let people down - unlike every other part of Blizzard. Yet they cut him.

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I haven’t listened to music in WoW since … well at least more than a decade. If I were voting with my own monthly payments, and it was “save 15 cents or continue to have symphony quality uniquely composed music,” I would opt to save the 15 cents.

EDIT:

WOW, what an incredibly great idea this prompted, Esimpure!

So, instead of eliminating departments and/or features, etc. how about adding “Shadow Features” - and do it coinciding with the release of “Shadowlands” for euphonic reasons (or whatever).

So, Shadow Features:

For $1/month (or another number), you can add a Barbershop to WoW Classic, viewable only on your account (and anyone else who also pays the additional $1/month barbershop fee to see changed hair styles).

You could do this for symphony quality music, sex/race changes, transmog, etc. etc… each with their own monthly subscription additive price.

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You’re missing out.

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I agree with you, OP but most of the player base doesn’t, they want TBC. I think you can expect legacy servers to take us all the way through wrath eventually. After that the interest dies off. Those of us who like classic in its original form will have to bite the bullet or go to private servers. I’ll be staying here…most of my guild wants TBC

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Where are your facts? Did you forget them?

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You didn’t hear? He’s not required to provide evidence. Just take his word for it. He says to take Blizzard’s word for it after all.

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Here’s a sampling:

https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,11653/
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,155805/
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,13484/
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,909730/
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,1031/
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,155812/
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,155815/
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,20714/
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,449685/
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,1063/
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,103661/
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,42812/
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,20777/
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,65432/
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,65360/

That doesn’t include any of the devs brought on to work on Vanilla during the course of it’s life. Those devs are included in the TBC credits, an example is Brian Birmingham who has said he was hired to work on Naxxramas. He isn’t credited on Vanilla because he didn’t work on the game’s launch.

I thought I’d go for the same strategy that you and all your forum friends are using. Claim something to be true because you feel it is, then propagate it across the forum as fact. Example: “bLizzArd IsNt BannING anY bOts!!!11”

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Report for troll and move on folks

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I understand Blizzard is a franchise and business. They want to make money. If Blizzard believes they’ll draw more people into their game, hence making more money, by adding MORE expansion to Classic (when they have already an entire separate version of the same game, “Wow Retail” with expansions), I truly cannot stop that. I am not a Blizz CEO, and wouldn’t want to be. I just love Blizzard’s game WoW Classic and I don’t want them to ruin it for us like they did with the retail expansions. Keep classic the way it is!

Maybe someone should make a petition? LOL! :smiley:

I almost consider it an act of cruelty to truly devoted OurWorld players, to change classic and add expansions, when Blizzard already has an expansion filled retail version!!! Come on blizzard! So this really was a plea, reflection, and most of all a message of gratitude, but I just wanted to do what I could to keep classic…classic! Thanks mates! :smiley:

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True, but I think he was probably referring to some of the better-known names that have departed over the years. Here’s a list:

Rob Pardo (1997 - 2014) Vice President of Game Design. He lead the development of Blizzard games since 1997: Lead Designer of StarCraft, WarCraft III, World of Warcraft, Starcraft II. One of the first names you see when the credits roll. Unlike Chris Metzen or Mike Morhaime, he was rarely taking the spotlight, but he was undoubtebly one of the key people behind Blizzard’s incredible success. In 2014 he left Blizzard to start his own studio.

Nick Carpenter (1994 - 2016) Vice President of Art & Cinematic Development. Fleshed out the overall look of Blizzard’s games and lead the team that created cinematics. Also, co-producer of the Warcraft film. Left in 2016 to join Bonfire Studios alongside Rob Pardo.

Chris Sigaty (1996 - 2019) Vice President and Senior Game Producer for all of the Blizzard’s RTS titles, including StarCraft, Warcraft III, Starcraft II. He was also Production Director for Heroes of the Storm. Played the rythm-guitar for L70ETC.

Frank Pearce (1991 - 2019) Co-founder and Chief Development Officer. One of the main people in Blizzard alongside Mike Morhaime and Allen Adham. Pearce was a programmer on Blizzard’s earlier titles, including The Lost Vikings, Blackthorne, Diablo and StarCraft. He later took on the role of chief development officer at Blizzard.

Mike Morhaime (1991 - 2018) Co-founder and President for 20 years. The person who made Blizzard great. Played bass-guitar for L70ETC.

Chris Metzen (1994 - 2016) Senior Vice President of Creative Development. He joined the company late in development of Warcraft II: Orcs and Humans. Lead concept artist and writer for StarCraft, StarCraft: Brood War, Warcraft III, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, Starcraft II, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor, Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void. He also gave voice to iconic characters such as Thrall, Ragnaros, Nefarian, Terran Marine, Battlecruiser and many others. Beloved by both developers and the community, his departure in 2016 was a devastating loss for Blizzard.

Dustin Browder (2005 - 2019) Game Director for StarCraft II and it’s expansions, Balance Designer for StarCraft II and Heroes of the Storm. Browder started as a designer for WoW:TBC, but was actually recruited to lead the development team for StarCraft II. Browder was an RTS veteran, prior to Blizzard he worked on C&C: Generals, Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-Earth and Red Alert 2. He was notorious for adding destructible rocks to Starcraft II and changing bunker build time 5 times, which became a meme. In his HotS days he was well known for providing support to angry players on his twitter, which he continues to this day.

Ben Brode (2003 - 2018) Game Director for Hearthstone. Beloved by community for his contagious laugh. He also worked on WoW TCG and WoW RPG.

Eric Dodds (1997 - 2019) QA for Diablo and StarCraft, Level Designer for Warcraft III and StarCraft: Brood War. Previously, also a Game Director for Hearthstone. Dodds was also working on StarCraft first-person shooter which was promptly axed by Blizzard.

Brian Sousa (1993 - 1999, 2007 - 2019) One of the veteran 3D artists and animators, responsible, for example, for janky dragoon models in StarCraft.

Greg Street (2008 - 2014) Lead systems designer on World of Warcraft until November 2013. On the World of Warcraft message boards, he was known by his user name “Ghostcrawler”.

Mark Kern (1998 - 2006) Best known for being a team lead on Vanilla World of Warcraft. He was one of the primary people who pushed for the release of Classic World of Warcraft. He has since abandoned Blizzard altogether following the Blitzchung incident where Blizzard banned and punished a Taiwanese Hearthstone player and two commentators.