Jeff Kaplan leaves WOW for next MMO News
MMO PC News by Oli Welsh
Jeff Kaplan, one of World of Warcraft's two lead designers and one of the game's most enthusiastic and visible spokesmen, has confirmed that he's leaving the WOW's development team. He'll work on Blizzard's next MMO instead.
Kaplan made the announcement on the WOW forums. "I wanted to take a moment to let the community know that I've switched roles here at Blizzard to work on our upcoming, unannounced MMO," he said, noting that he'd been working on WOW for six and a half years.
"I still plan to be very involved with the future course of WOW, but will leave the day to day operations of WOW to my partners in crime, Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack," Kaplan said.
The move isn't quite a surprise - Kaplan said he was "definitely involved" in the new game last year. He has hinted that it might have a non-traditional setting, and might be available on consoles. He was also listed in this year's Game Developers Conference programme as an "associate designer".
Although Kaplan was quick to praise the work of his colleagues, he will leave big shoes to fill on the WOW development team. He had particular responsibility for the design of quests, dungeons and world zones, all of which were of exceptional quality in recent expansion Wrath of the Lich King.
Kaplan, known as Tigole on forums and in-game, was famously recruited by Blizzard's design chief Rob Pardo after they met online in Kaplan's EverQuest guild.
"When all is said and done, WOW is still my favorite game. I play it every day. None of that passion is gone. If anything, it fuels the challenge of making our next MMO even better," Kaplan said. "Mostly, I just wanted to say thanks. It has been an absolute honour."
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Comments: 1-21 of 21 in total
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the_inchworm
13/02/09 @ 09:49
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Well I guess that shows personal tastes. I *much* preferred 40 man raids to the system that is now in place. I loved the fact that it was a truly epic achievement to clear a dungeon, and life was not so brazenly focused on min/maxing everything in sight.
As time has gone by, I found WoW required more of a grind to even bring your gear up to speed for raid encounters and these 'heal check', 'dps check' bosses are not my bag at all. And that's why I stopped playing. It became more of a chore than a game you could have fun within. |
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MrChuckles
13/02/09 @ 10:02
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'Evolution: Honestly, how do you play this game for 4 years?'
i have to admit, i agree with your sentiments. I love playing MMOs, but i have never made it past the mid-game as in the end i just get bored of grinding. I think i've managed: Level 39 in WOW Level 27 in CoH Level 24 in Everquest Level 22 in LOTR Currently Level 20 in WAR. When it becomes 'Kill 7 wolves with more health AGAIN', i tend to turn off. |
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>I also miss the days of 40-man raids. :-( Some of my best gaming moments.
Yea... 25 people playing in MC and 15 other just being on /follow. Or maybe waiting 3 hours for all the 40 raiders to show up. Great stuff! Or playing with 40 for 4 hours and getting NO drops because your class has 10 others to roll on gear. /sarcasm That idiot should have stayed in EQ. |
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I sort of enjoyed the 40 mans, more for a social perspective than raid achievement perspective. But then the best we did was killing Nef in BWL, so we were very much a social rather than progress guild.
I remember hearing his nickname was based on a reversal of "bigole titties" - "Tigole Bitties". Which is a mildly dickhead move imo. |
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cornishflipper
13/02/09 @ 12:31
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@mkreku
yeah, what were they thinking with Burning Crusade? Nagrand was the highlight until it became kill 60 animals quest... oh and you can do it twice just for fun :S |
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@MrChuckles
Exactly. @Drpwnage How has it evolved enormously exactly? It's always had raids, PvE, PvP, the only big change there was the introdution of battlegrounds. Granted, I haven't played it for a good while now because when I did (for a good period of time) there was no significant changes beyond the introduction of BGs. From the article it implies that he plays it for fun all the time. |
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i've played wow for a long time now, and it has evolved and is a much better game than it was when I first started playing it. Wotlk has some great quest chains, interesting story and humour that the other mmo's i've played severely lack. There is a reason wow has so many subscribers and thats because its a damn good game. And I for one cant wait for world of starcraft or whatever Kaplan has gone off to work on :)
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Comments: 1-21 of 21 in total
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