Jeff Kapplan's fate is quite frustrating to me. He is, in my opinion, the most talented guy at Blizzard. He, together with other talented people, made WoW Vanilla, TBC and WotLK. He really valued the hardcore aspects of the game as he was a raider in the game Everquest, a game WoW was heavily inspired by. Then, Jeff was pulled off WoW to work on TITAN. TITAN was this next huge MMO game they were going to make. Jeff was so excited, he wrote on the forums his goodbyes and told us to look forward to this new even more epic MMO. We were stoked. Years and years went by and the project suddenly died. Then they turned it into Overwatch. Don't get me wrong, Overwatch is the best game I have played in years and is now my main game, but maaan poor Jeff. I saw this documentary about how sad he was that TITAN got canceled and he is now "stuck" leading a FPS game, while his real passion is hardcore MMO games. I hope one day, Jeff will either get to work on an epic MMO or bring WoW back on track, because WoW has lost itself and it sorely needs you. Funfact: As you can see on his t-shirt his nickname is Tigole. He also has a last name, full name is 'Tigole Bitties'.
If somebody important reads this, please, if there will be something like Warcraf 4, World of Wacraft 2 or some other way to save warcraft, please, let Jeff Kaplan work on it. Today's developement of WoW is just terrible.
I am a person who researches designers in search for talent. "Jeff was so excited, he wrote on the forums his goodbyes and told us to look forward to this new even more epic MMO. We were stoked. " Where did he post such things? I only know of his Tigole 'rant' post.
WoW was meant to be hardcore. If you look up the raid philisiphy of blizzcon 2005 (?) you see Jeff Kaplan talk about how they wanted a hardcore guild to have something to raid 7 NIGHTS A WEEK. And they did. How is that not hardcore? I also challenge you to talk to a rank 14 and say it is casual.
Kaplan knew how to make the game incredibly immersive, challenging, rewarding, and fun. I wonder what his thoughts are on where the game has gone, especially since he was one of the people that liked the more hardcore model. Miss you Kaplan :'(
Wasn't Kaplan a world / quest designer in Vanilla though ? Not sure how much he impacted the gameplay and design decisions. I think his primary role was to write story lines for the quests as he had a writing degree from uni.
Actually, he didn't know anything about how to make a game immersive. It was immersive entirely because of the art and music, which he had nothing to do with.
Jeff Kaplan was definitely one of the members of the core Vanilla / TBC Warcraft team that made vanilla and tbc as great as it was. And I completely agree with @OfficialJesseStone that him leaving at TBC was part of the reason the game turned into shit. Another reason is that Blizzard was sold to Activision which is essentially a share company I believe. Empirical evidence has it that Activision has impacted Blizzards decision making processes and as such, since the merge in 2008 the company has strayed far away from the core principles and values the company was initially built on. Which is a shame to say the least. However I will say that this is a trend we see in the modern day quite often, companies sacrificing their core integrity in order to maximize profit. At the end of the day, this is a company, and as any company one of their main objectives is to be profitable. Some go to greater lengths to achieve this, even sacrificing their core values in order to achieve this. Which sucks for the fans but ultimately as a company, they achieve, at least one of their more important goals and objectives.
Well, Blizzard kinda shot themselves in the leg because their subcount is on the lowest it has been in years, so about maximizing the profits, i say it didn't go as planned, hehe :'D
After the merger, Vivendi ( a European media company ) became a majority stock owner. You have to study Vivendi for answers since 99 % of devs and games had no cross over between Activision and Blizzard. A couple of years later, ATVI bought out Vivendi by taking a bank credit of about $ 6 Billion ( or 8, I don't remember ) but since too many new devs were on the WoW team and too many original devs had changed career or stopped working altogether because of "stock options" the changes and QOL "improvements" to WoW stayed and grew. Ultimately. WoW was ruined by Blizzard with some influence from Vivendi when it came to catering to the Chinese market. It was the unforeseen global and domestic success that made Blizzard ruin themselves and once you are saturated with cash and set for life, there are few reasons to change or improve upon things. The current devs are too old and they are no longer active gamers. No matter what they say on events or festivals. They are not playing their game. Caplan played WoW. Both at work and with friends unrelated to work.
My biggest gripe is that the story director for The Burning Crusade didn't even know what they were doing. They took one look at Illidan and said "Oh he must be Kil'Jaeden." And made him the leader of the Burning Legion. :/ Like really? Personally I feel that if you have never played the game you shouldn't be allowed to write the story for the game.
Sassy I think Legion is worse than WoD. Fight me xD Whatever, 3 hours till BFA launch! Have fun, ill be grinding to 120 starting from the second of release.
8:38 he said "video card" yet WoW has been massively CPU bound since the day it released and 8.1 brought Multi-Threading for huge game improvement performance; which proves the game is still heavily CPU bound. Video card, PFF
I hope Blizzard sees this video and understand where they went wrong in recent years. Sharding, CRZ has killed the community as well as other issues, WoW isn't a MMORPG anymore, there is no RPG to this game. I've all ways said that Blizzard will be the victim of its own success and i was right, arrogance and the wrong people at the head of the table has killed WoW.
After the merger, Vivendi ( a European media company ) became a majority owner. People who are interested in this ( ? ) should study Vivendi for answers since 99 % of dev teams had no crossover between Activision and Blizzard. A couple of years later, ATVI got rid of Vivendi by taking a bank credit of $ 6 Billion but since too many new devs were on the WoW team and too many original devs had changed career or stopped working because of "stock options" the changes and QOL in WoW stayed and grew. ( also, understand the pressure from creditors ) Ultimately. WoW was ruined by Blizzard with some influence from Vivendi when it came to catering to the Chinese market. It was the unforeseen global and domestic success that made Blizzard ruin themselves and once you are saturated with cash and set for life there are few reasons to improve. The current devs are no longer active gamers. No matter what they say on events. They are not playing the game. Kaplan played WoW. Both at work and with friends unrelated to work. It wasn't Activision that made Kaplan stop playing WoW. It was age, a successful career and a curiosity for new game development. Too bad that the superseding teams have been clueless, non gamers of the wrong generation. The reason for the merger had nothing to do with WoW directly. The reason for the merger was to save money on accounting, buying commercials in bulk, sharing real estate deals, getting better deals in banking ( i.e. lower interest rate ) etc. Check here. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision_Blizzard
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
Young Jeff looks like a McDonald’s employee
Really? What does a mcdolad's employee look like? is there a prototype ?
He is honest open and modest. Qualities that are rarely seen today.
Classyyert --- He still does...
Old jeff looks like balding gandalf.
He would have been if Blizzard hadn't given him a free ticket.
Hi this is Jeff from the World of Warcraft team
Jeff Kapplan's fate is quite frustrating to me. He is, in my opinion, the most talented guy at Blizzard. He, together with other talented people, made WoW Vanilla, TBC and WotLK. He really valued the hardcore aspects of the game as he was a raider in the game Everquest, a game WoW was heavily inspired by. Then, Jeff was pulled off WoW to work on TITAN. TITAN was this next huge MMO game they were going to make. Jeff was so excited, he wrote on the forums his goodbyes and told us to look forward to this new even more epic MMO. We were stoked. Years and years went by and the project suddenly died. Then they turned it into Overwatch. Don't get me wrong, Overwatch is the best game I have played in years and is now my main game, but maaan poor Jeff. I saw this documentary about how sad he was that TITAN got canceled and he is now "stuck" leading a FPS game, while his real passion is hardcore MMO games. I hope one day, Jeff will either get to work on an epic MMO or bring WoW back on track, because WoW has lost itself and it sorely needs you.
Funfact: As you can see on his t-shirt his nickname is Tigole. He also has a last name, full name is 'Tigole Bitties'.
If somebody important reads this, please, if there will be something like Warcraf 4, World of Wacraft 2 or some other way to save warcraft, please, let Jeff Kaplan work on it. Today's developement of WoW is just terrible.
I am a person who researches designers in search for talent.
"Jeff was so excited, he wrote on the forums his goodbyes and told us to look forward to this new even more epic MMO. We were stoked. "
Where did he post such things? I only know of his Tigole 'rant' post.
do you think hes on the wow classic dev team? ;))))
WoW was meant to be hardcore. If you look up the raid philisiphy of blizzcon 2005 (?) you see Jeff Kaplan talk about how they wanted a hardcore guild to have something to raid 7 NIGHTS A WEEK. And they did. How is that not hardcore? I also challenge you to talk to a rank 14 and say it is casual.
When jeff could have stayed WoW would be better now
Kaplan knew how to make the game incredibly immersive, challenging, rewarding, and fun. I wonder what his thoughts are on where the game has gone, especially since he was one of the people that liked the more hardcore model. Miss you Kaplan :'(
+Exploration Ⓥ He's busy doing Overwatch, no wonder that game is becoming great.
Wasn't Kaplan a world / quest designer in Vanilla though ? Not sure how much he impacted the gameplay and design decisions. I think his primary role was to write story lines for the quests as he had a writing degree from uni.
Actually, he didn't know anything about how to make a game immersive. It was immersive entirely because of the art and music, which he had nothing to do with.
Jeff Kaplan is Tigole Bitties?! This man...
This man single handedly made vanilla WoW as great as it was
His leaving after TBC is when WoW went to shit.
You want to tell me WOTLK was shit? LOL
WOTLK was shit.
Jeff directed WOTLK...
Jake Tilton along with activision
Dont forget Mark Kern.
*I am looking forward to this game, it sounds great!*
Well now we actually can lol
When Papa Jeff left the Blizzard we know and love died
*"Hey guys this is Jeff from the The Burning Crusade team."*
SO young
Jeffrey Kaplan is fucking awesome. wish we had him still in wow. it was so much better then
Jeff Kaplan was definitely one of the members of the core Vanilla / TBC Warcraft team that made vanilla and tbc as great as it was. And I completely agree with @OfficialJesseStone that him leaving at TBC was part of the reason the game turned into shit. Another reason is that Blizzard was sold to Activision which is essentially a share company I believe. Empirical evidence has it that Activision has impacted Blizzards decision making processes and as such, since the merge in 2008 the company has strayed far away from the core principles and values the company was initially built on. Which is a shame to say the least.
However I will say that this is a trend we see in the modern day quite often, companies sacrificing their core integrity in order to maximize profit. At the end of the day, this is a company, and as any company one of their main objectives is to be profitable. Some go to greater lengths to achieve this, even sacrificing their core values in order to achieve this. Which sucks for the fans but ultimately as a company, they achieve, at least one of their more important goals and objectives.
Well, Blizzard kinda shot themselves in the leg because their subcount is on the lowest it has been in years, so about maximizing the profits, i say it didn't go as planned, hehe :'D
After the merger, Vivendi ( a European media company ) became a majority stock owner.
You have to study Vivendi for answers
since 99 % of devs and games had no cross over between Activision and Blizzard.
A couple of years later, ATVI bought out Vivendi by taking a bank credit of about $ 6 Billion
( or 8, I don't remember ) but since too many new devs were on the WoW team
and too many original devs had changed career or stopped working altogether because of "stock options" the changes and QOL "improvements" to WoW stayed and grew.
Ultimately. WoW was ruined by Blizzard with some influence from Vivendi when it came to catering to the Chinese market. It was the unforeseen global and domestic success that made Blizzard ruin themselves and once you are saturated with cash and set for life, there are few reasons to change or improve upon things. The current devs are too old and they are no longer active gamers. No matter what they say on events or festivals. They are not playing their game. Caplan played WoW. Both at work and with friends unrelated to work.
Advise u to listen to 7:29+. He literally knew what made woe addictive.
oh fk yeah the community is what made WoW
10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000%
So fucking wholesome god damn
My biggest gripe is that the story director for The Burning Crusade didn't even know what they were doing. They took one look at Illidan and said "Oh he must be Kil'Jaeden." And made him the leader of the Burning Legion. :/ Like really? Personally I feel that if you have never played the game you shouldn't be allowed to write the story for the game.
WRESTLE
This guys is amazing thanks to him and pardo weve got wow
They need to ask Kaplan for info on how to properly handle this game. He sure knows what to do.
baby jeff
RgObese oh yeah
HOLY SHIT ITS JEFF KAPLAN
"each class has extremely unique abilities"
not any more!
Daddy Kaplan went from Hi I'm here to inform you on World of Warcrafy
to
IMA NERF YOUR MAIN!!!
Hi this is Jeff from the Overwatch team 😢 RIP.
0:07 The face of a legend
Baby Jeff
Is that Jeff younglan
They need this guy back on WoW NOW....and Ion Hazzikostas has to GO
+Markyboy28 He is - Lead designer for Overwatch =) that game will Kick Ass =)))
Overwatch has won Game of the Year award.
Legion is failing harder than WOD with Ion now being game director.
Surprise Surprise.
"Legion is failing harder than WOD"
Lol, how many brain cells do you even have?
WoD was terrible, true, but Legion is fading as well. I dont want to show up numbers, but the game is still dying.
Sassy I think Legion is worse than WoD. Fight me xD Whatever, 3 hours till BFA launch! Have fun, ill be grinding to 120 starting from the second of release.
It's papa fuckin Jeff 13 goddamn years ago
Fun fact: Tigole = comes from Tigole Bitties :) Great man thanks for all the hours of enjoyment in your games!
YOUNG JEPH.
What happened. I'm playing TBC classic and I love it so much. Retail wow actually makes me very sad, it doesn't feel like a game anymore.
8:38 he said "video card" yet WoW has been massively CPU bound since the day it released and 8.1 brought Multi-Threading for huge game improvement performance; which proves the game is still heavily CPU bound. Video card, PFF
jeff kaplan is god
Those words 6:40 represent TBC, you had to earn things, just like in vanilla. No idea why Blizzard is taking different aproach these days :(
Everyone go bing credit to Kaplan for WoW Vanilla, TBC, and Overwatch even though hundreds of people also put in as much work as him.
he cute
6:29 See, Blizzard? Players must feel what they earn! Not just drop from a boss, or a bunch of gold!
Jefffff I love you
All these people in the comments section saying Ion Hazzikostas has to go and Ion Hazzikostas just gave us vanilla wow servers
Betwixt Realms Ik right. I luv Ion idk why so much hate
I‘ M E T H A N B R A D B E R R Y it's because he was a lawyer before a game designer, and has a very smug, punchable face.
Jeff come back
1:34 😏
Jeff what happened
here from overwatch, lmfao
Shut
JEFF 🤖
why does this video look like a raped VHS tape from the 80s ?
WoW BC isnt THAT old..
Wait he was kinda cute when he was younger !
I hope Blizzard sees this video and understand where they went wrong in recent years. Sharding, CRZ has killed the community as well as other issues, WoW isn't a MMORPG anymore, there is no RPG to this game. I've all ways said that Blizzard will be the victim of its own success and i was right, arrogance and the wrong people at the head of the table has killed WoW.
LFG & flying were the first signs of trouble
why they made the horde paladin get seal of blood and the alliance gets seal of shit? it doesn't even compare in this expansion
0:57 you call that pretty?
Getting Sheldon vibes
2019
This makes me depressed
gg
After the merger, Vivendi ( a European media company ) became a majority owner.
People who are interested in this ( ? ) should study Vivendi for answers
since 99 % of dev teams had no crossover between Activision and Blizzard.
A couple of years later, ATVI got rid of Vivendi by taking a bank credit of $ 6 Billion
but since too many new devs were on the WoW team
and too many original devs had changed career or stopped working because of "stock options"
the changes and QOL in WoW stayed and grew. ( also, understand the pressure from creditors )
Ultimately. WoW was ruined by Blizzard
with some influence from Vivendi when it came to catering to the Chinese market.
It was the unforeseen global and domestic success that made Blizzard ruin themselves
and once you are saturated with cash and set for life there are few reasons to improve.
The current devs are no longer active gamers. No matter what they say on events.
They are not playing the game. Kaplan played WoW. Both at work and with friends unrelated to work.
It wasn't Activision that made Kaplan stop playing WoW.
It was age, a successful career and a curiosity for new game development.
Too bad that the superseding teams have been clueless, non gamers of the wrong generation.
The reason for the merger had nothing to do with WoW directly.
The reason for the merger was to save money on accounting, buying commercials in bulk, sharing real estate deals, getting better deals in banking ( i.e. lower interest rate ) etc.
Check here. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision_Blizzard
Fukin meme dude
Looks high af
Daddy
Warcraft died with this. Expansions weren't adding anything to the game, but replacing it.
Agree with all the comments here finally left Warcraft and found another blizzard game I love playing yes it's called overwatch hehe
Daddy