Past Blizzard Employees: Ghostcrawler on Death Knights, Metzen on Leaving Blizzard

Posted 2016/11/17 at 2:33 PM by perculia

Metzen InterviewScott JohnsonGhostcrawler on Wrath Death Knightsnew tumblrentire post

All three specs were originally designed to not have a specific role--they were all meant to tank, DPS, and PvP in some form. Ghostcrawler still has mixed feelings about stepping back from this idea; the reason for more traditional specs was that the team was essentially designing many specs-within-specs. For example, every spec would need a version for Tank, DPS, dual-wield, PvP, etc.

Blood was intended to be the "easy" melee spec, Frost the "min/max" spec with some casting abilities, and Unholy the "pet-based" class.

Death Knights were a catalyst for revisiting the system of buffs in parties or raids, because there was a fear that groups wouldn't "have room" for another melee if a group already required certain specs for party-wide buffs.

The developers had a lot of experimentation with creative spells to hook players and encourage them to try a new spec; eg Xelnath designed Death Grip. One unintended downside was that these new types of spells had some buggy behavior for players.

Part of the success of the Wrath DK was credited to the Acherus starting zone quest, which was led by Alex Afrasiabi, and the initiative to engage the community of alpha and beta testers.

At one point in the design process, abilities scaled with disease count and Death Knights could have a huge number of diseases--something like 16 different types.

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Comments

Comment by Arraya

Oh, hearing this is sad. But I'm happy he's looking out for himself. Still, Metzen will be missed.

Comment by Alecino

They need to completely redesign each class and spec from the ground up, not just the DK's; they were at some point stable during wrath but that just made every other class feel unbalanced. Then comes to question of raiding, I personally see an average of 4 DK's within a typical raid (even less if you count world bosses). I've seen my Healers leave if one or both tanks are DK's, because, they are so unpredictable to heal and can survive on their own while the stressed out healers spend their cd's on healing the wrong player and letting the strong dps die due to that can't heal themselves. I feel like we already experienced this in other expansions. At the end, you can clearly see how one class/spec can and will affect everybody. Just a little food for thought!

Comment by perculia

Oh, hearing this is sad. But I'm happy he's looking out for himself. Still, Metzen will be missed.

I was expecting a regular chat when I first clicked on the audio, but I was very moved listening to the full thing.

Comment by Baatmaan

It is so weird seeing a legend, an icon, and in a lot of ways, a role model of mine to be as gullible as me - or you know, a regular person. I hope he "recovers" and starts to create again, if even as a hobby. Without pressure.

Comment by Vaeku

Same here... but at the same time I'm glad that he did this interview because it's good to see that he has the same problems as everyone else.

Comment by SilverDragon234

He'll still be a voice actor, regardless.

Comment by kodora1316

I miss the original death knights. I had such fun with the come-back-as-a-ghoul ability.

Comment by tatsuran

Best wishes to Metzen

Comment by Pelontir

Respect to Chris Metzen for talking so openly about this and the fact that he is looking out for himself! Thanks alot for all the great stuff you created and take care!

Comment by kodora1316

They need to completely redesign each class and spec from the ground up

Geez they just did MAJOR redesigns. How is that not enough?

Comment by Snowy6

Oh, hearing this is sad. But I'm happy he's looking out for himself. Still, Metzen will be missed.

I was expecting a regular chat when I first clicked on the audio, but I was very moved listening to the full thing.

Sorry but I do not see a link to the audio in the article.

Comment by perculia

Oh, hearing this is sad. But I'm happy he's looking out for himself. Still, Metzen will be missed.

I was expecting a regular chat when I first clicked on the audio, but I was very moved listening to the full thing.

Sorry but I do not see a link to the audio in the article.

Is the soundcloud embed not loading for you?

Comment by Mightyena5875345

I wish Metzen would be like Blizzard's hype man at Blizzcon still though. Like why can't he just stop working on their games and just come out of retirement every Blizzcon to hype up the audience. He is so good at it! He can just be informed of all the new stuff coming up and be told what to tell the audience about. Would be a fun way to still be involved in the community and not have all that stress! He is such an awesome guy and I missed him at Blizzcon this year.

Comment by Winfree

Christ Metzen thank you for several decades of joys & creativity you brought upon millions. For opening yourself up stating that we all got flaws & stress is no good. Once again thank you for sharing this with us.

Comment by perculia

Towards the end of the interview he addressed BlizzCon a bit - he admitted he was generally a private, homey person and that the public persona of him as a hype man wasn't him on a day to day basis. He did love genuinely interacting with fans at BlizzCon, but discussed a past convention in which he got an anxiety attack and needed some quiet space before heading back to meet with fans.

Comment by bbt13843

Being a young man of twenty-one with a hard exterior this broke me down into tears twice. I feel a wholeness with the world after hearing Chris talk about his life. I felt many of these emotions before and to hear a grown man talk about needing help makes me feel alright about my own problems. This helped more than my own vocabulary could ever explain. Thank you Chris and Perculia for sharing this.

Comment by Taraezor

Hmmm... around the 6 to 7 minute mark he said he hadn't been into work for several months. At most just touching base every so often. Then he fronts up and retires.

Around the ten minute mark he delves into his personal psychological situation. Anxiety.

Around the 11 minute mark he cites Titan as the tipping point. The incredible disappointment that the development team of which he was a part just could not agree on how to push the project forward.

(I know from personal experience how frustrating it can be to have a group of driven creatives, heels dug in, committed with all their heart to their own way to push forward a project. Recipe for failure)

A little more insight into his situation, the response from his employer and the incredible space he needed to be able to make a decision.

By the 14 minute mark I can see that he has really had a chance over the months of downtime while he was still employed at Blizzard to really analyse the situation.

I think we can all agree that on the basis of all the very personal details he revealed, he had to leave Blizzard for the sake of his sanity and his family.

Great decision Chris.

Don't hurry back. And I mean that in a really nice way!

(By the 17 minute mark you can see he wanted to go out on a high and after the failure of Titan. You succeeded many times over Chris!)

Comment by Organthrone

Such a frank and honest interview, really brought a lot home, and just bolstered my respect for Chris even higher.

Comment by Faoil

Metzen was an excellent, charismatic hype man at Blizzcon, but I also think Ion Hazzikotas does a great job of it too. He's certainly less socially awkward seeming than a lot of other Blizzard employees. Not that's a bad thing, they're game designers, not orators or comedians.

Comment by Arraya

Oh, hearing this is sad. But I'm happy he's looking out for himself. Still, Metzen will be missed.

I was expecting a regular chat when I first clicked on the audio, but I was very moved listening to the full thing.

Yeah, it was a very deep conversation, sad hearing his story, considering how much of an amazing and fun guy he is.