Chris Metzen is back - full-time! For those not in the know, this is amazing news. Chris Metzen was one of the primary forces in charge of building the roots of Warcraft universe and was previously announced to come back to Blizzard in an advisory role late last year. This shift to Executive Creative Director of the Warcraft universe means he is back on the team full-time and will be overseeing the stories and world we adore.
Quote From Blizzard Citizens of Azeroth,
We are excited to share that CHRIS METZEN has taken on a full-time role as Executive Creative Director of the Warcraft universe. Right now, his main focus is supporting our World of Warcraft leadership in crafting the next generation of adventures.
Chris was instrumental in developing the foundations of the Warcraft universe, and we are thrilled for him to rejoin our teams in shaping what's to come.
At BlizzCon, he and the team will be sharing what we've been working on. We hope to see you there!
What exactly have they been cooking up over the past 9 months is anyone's guess, but it does make one wonder if we could see a continuation of the Warcraft Classic series with new stories in a different timeline. Warcraft Classic has been a beloved addition to the Warcraft series and it is a very distinct type of MMO from what the modern version of World of Warcraft is. If there was some way that the Classic game could continue to receive new updates and new stories that would fit into the mainline universe, that would be pretty cool.
With that said, I don't want to get anyone's hopes up because we know absolutely nothing and can only hope that Blizzard is looking at 10 and even 15 years into the Warcraft franchise, building on massive stories and hundreds of new characters that we will get to know without forcing any more of our beloved characters into chaos and tyranny. World of Warcraft has had a more recent problem of introducing a character only to make them a big baddie an expansion later, which is amateur story development and a common complaint seen online.
Quote From Chris Metzen It’s been amazing working on Warcraft again. Like coming home. The stories we’re developing right now – how the world unfolds over the next few years… Well, I can’t wait for y’all to see where we’re headed. SOON… :)
Will Chris Metzen's full return to Blizzard signal even more greatness past Dragonflight? Which has been quite a phenomenal expansion thus far. Honestly, who cares, let's just get that hype man back up on stage for another "WHAT UP BLIZZCON?". We're looking forward to seeing what's to come for World of Warcraft at this year's BlizzCon.
Welcome home, Chris. We missed you. LOK'TAR OGAR
Comments
According to Mythic+ data and Warcraft logs, the number of players completing raids and dungeons were substantially less in the Dragonflight expansion launch compared to Shadowlands. So according to data, it just goes to show how badly Shadowlands burnt players that never returned for the next expansion. I'm sure Blizzard also have this data so maybe that's why they brought Chris Metzen back to try salvage what's left of Retail WoW.
As for WoW Classic, whatever they do, they better not remove Deathwing from the lore. I'd be very upset with that retcon.
Rumors swirling of big layoffs coming, potentially hitting HS team hardest. Any concrete evidemce of this?
It's certainly possible some positions could be hit due to the Microsoft acquisition going through. I'm not certain that will happen. Blizzard might be a part of the Microsoft family, but they should still be their own studio, much like all the other studios under the Microsoft Games/Xbox branch. It's not like they'd dump the social team and use an existing studio's team.
I hope there aren't any big layoffs if they do happen. Blizzard needs all the people they can get to keep their stuff pumping for Game Pass.
Looks like I'm wrong. I guess we'll see who was impacted soon.
https://twitter.com/ethangach/status/1706809151178068475?s=20
Layoffs reportedly hit Blizzard today. A tools engineer at the company for 18 years said they were suddenly let go without notice due to a restructuring of the Hearthstone team. Waiting for comment from Activision Blizzard.
Source tells me 10 people impacted, all within Hearthstone. Activision Blizzard statement: "Organizational changes were made to the Hearthstone team; as a result a small number of roles have become redundant. We want to thank these employees for their many contributions."
Them saying they're redundant positions gives off nothing but bad signs for the game. If anything it feels like they need more people as the game is riddled with bugs that take a while to solve. And the monetization seems more and more greedy with offers like 50$ for 3 cosmetic cards. Honestly, I'm more concerned about the Microsoft acquisition now. A big company like that will dismiss Hearthstone very quickly if they see it doesn't create much profit and that the studio is just another expense.
I think it's more like Microsoft wanted to enforce some restructuring so that the eventual restructure they wanted didn't fall back as Microsoft layoffs. So if that's the case, this is a good sign that Microsoft wants to ensure the team is successful and profitable, and they only saw fit to eliminate 10 positions to put it in a spot where it can meet their expectations.
I was in a small stream of my friend’s, someone came in all “I guess it’s time to quit HS” like the whole team got laid off or something. I thought that sounded crazy given they just made a new mode, maybe brought back some older players, etc. However, I couldn’t find anything at first. But a restructure before the completed buyout sounded more reasonable. Might have even gotten Microsoft feedback on cuts to make the transition easier. Cut them now instead of later when it’ll look like MS layoffs.
I really don't understand why so many people are talking about 10 folks leaving as the time to quit HS. The team has over 100 people (likely over 2-300 at this point) so 10 people in the grand scheme of things isn't very many. The time to quit was when the game started getting more RNG heavy, we didn't have duplicate protection, and the only thing we could buy was card packs or three cosmetic skins. Hearthstone had some dark times and bad monetization patterns in those days, even for a card game, which is why we saw the changes.
Agreed that it feels like a "cut some people loose before the acquisition" situation so Microsoft doesn't take the flak.
Pretty sure people have been crying out about the game dying since Naxx came out and they didn't like Undertaker Hunter.
Ain't that the truth!
I don't know of any online game out there were people aren't always saying it's dying. I'd be willing to wager in most cases it's people not playing the game anymore being the ones crying about it too. Sunk cost fallacy is a helluva drug.