Jay has posted on the official forums apologizing for a comment posted on facebook a few days ago. However some interesting thoughts behind where Diablo III is and where it is going can be found in this post. Three interesting parts are highlighted below, but you should read the full thing for yourself to get the most information out of it!
- "The Auction House can short circuit the natural pace of item drops, making the game feel less rewarding for some players. This is a problem we recognize. At this point we're not sure of the exact way to fix it, but we’re discussing it constantly, and we believe it's a problem we can overcome."
- " Later in the development of Diablo II, the 'players 8' command -- which let people set monster difficulty -- was added to address this issue, and we're considering something similar for the next major Diablo III patch to allow players to make up their own minds about how hard or how easy is right for them."
- [Regarding end-game and the item hunt] "I don't think there’s a silver-bullet solution to this problem, but I do think we can make this aspect of the game better, and as such we're planning more than just PvP for the next major patch."
Originally Posted by Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
(As many of you probably know, I recently made a comment on Facebook about Dave Brevik. I want to make it clear that I am very sorry for what I said. I have higher expectations for myself than to express my feelings in such a rash way and disrespect a fellow developer like Dave, someone who deserves to be treated with greater respect.
What I said was expressed out of anger, and in defense of my team and the game. People can say what they want about me, but I don't take lightly when they disparage the commitment and passion of the Diablo III team. Dave is awesome. In Diablo and Diablo II, he made two of the games that have most affected me as a developer. I respect his vision for Diablo, but just like he said in his interview, the Diablo III team must drive a vision for the game that is true to us. We believe in Diablo and have stuck by it through years of hard development to make it a reality.
The foundation of the Diablo team was built from the remnants of Blizzard North: Our lead programmer, who built the basis of the Diablo III engine while at Blizzard North; our lead tech artist, who drove much of the combat visuals, FX, and skill direction of our classes and is one of the most avid Diablo II players you can find; our lead concept artist, who helped establish the core look of the game; Wyatt Cheng, our senior technical game designer, who writes many of our blogs and works tirelessly on the live game. All these people and many others made the commitment to Diablo even after Blizzard North shut down. It was hard for me to see their contributions be diminished by someone they worked alongside, and even harder for me not to try to jump to their defense. I only wish I'd done so in a more professional manner.
Joining the Diablo team was a dream come true for me. In my house, the name Diablo was always spoken in hushed tones. It meant late nights that turned into early mornings, moments of pure adrenaline and pure joy. It meant countless conversations, debates, scouring websites for good builds, and more than one or two sick days. When Diablo II was released, I took a week off work and sent my wife out of state... and she was pregnant at the time! I played Diablo II with my dad during one of the most difficult times of his life, and the experience brought me closer to him, and I hope helped him through it. I joined the Diablo team because the idea of a world without more Diablo seemed like a pretty crappy world to me. I wasn't sure if I'd be good enough. I'm still not sure. But I felt I had to try.
Regardless of how I've done, my team has been more than good enough, and I'm proud of the game we made together. We believe it's a great game. But Diablo III has flaws. It is not perfect. Sales mean nothing if the game doesn’t live on in all of our hearts, and standing by our games is what Blizzard does. Patch 1.0.4 is a step in the right direction, but we have no illusions that our work is done.
Playing Diablo III needs to be a rewarding experience. The new legendaries are a big step in the right direction, as are tweaks to item drop rates. But I'm not convinced that we've gone far enough. If you don't have that great feeling of a good drop being right around the corner -- and the burst of excitement when it finally arrives -- then we haven't done our jobs right. Out of our concern to make sure that Diablo III would have longevity, we were overly cautious about how we handled item drops and affixes. If 1.0.4 hasn’t fixed that, you can be sure we'll continue to address it.
Part of the problem, however, is not just item drops, but the variety of things to do within the game. Many of you have stated that there needs to be more to the game than just the item hunt, and we agree completely. The Paragon system is a step in the right direction, giving meta-progress for your time in the game, but it does little to address the variety of activities you can do while playing. I don't think there’s a silver-bullet solution to this problem, but I do think we can make this aspect of the game better, and as such we're planning more than just PvP for the next major patch. Not trying to be coy, but we're still firming things up and will talk about this as soon as we can.
Difficulty has been a constant source of division when discussing the game. Some players believe Diablo has never been about crushing challenges, but more about efficiency and farming. Some players want a game that tests them to their limits. Neither player is wrong. As it stands, Diablo III simply does not provide the tools to allow players to scale the game challenge to something appropriate for them. We set Inferno as the high watermark and took a one-size-fits-all approach to game challenge. Later in the development of Diablo II, the 'players 8' command -- which let people set monster difficulty -- was added to address this issue, and we're considering something similar for the next major Diablo III patch to allow players to make up their own minds about how hard or how easy is right for them.
The Auction House has also proven to be a big challenge. It adds a lot of power for players to trade and acquire items. Getting a great Monk drop that you can trade for better gear for your Wizard is obviously a great benefit, but it does come with a downside. The Auction House can short circuit the natural pace of item drops, making the game feel less rewarding for some players. This is a problem we recognize. At this point we're not sure of the exact way to fix it, but we’re discussing it constantly, and we believe it's a problem we can overcome.
While these are some of the major issues with Diablo III, they aren't the only things we're looking at. On a daily basis we ask ourselves if the classes are satisfying to play, if rares and champions are fun to fight, if they’re tuned well relative to normal monsters. Can we make further improvements to social elements of the game? How can items be even better?
We made Diablo III because we believe in the Diablo games. We think the gameplay is awesome, the world is compelling, and it's the game we all wanted to play. Because we believe in it, we'll continue to stand by it and make it better. We are committed to making Diablo III the best Diablo game to date, and we hope you'll continue to help us do just that.
Saying that, I'd like to apologize to all of you, the players in our community. You deserve better than my reaction to Dave's comments. You deserve more honest communication about the game and what we're doing to make it a more awesome experience for us all. We care about Diablo very much, and appreciate your passion for it. Without you, we wouldn't be able to do this, and for that I can't thank you enough.
What I said was expressed out of anger, and in defense of my team and the game. People can say what they want about me, but I don't take lightly when they disparage the commitment and passion of the Diablo III team. Dave is awesome. In Diablo and Diablo II, he made two of the games that have most affected me as a developer. I respect his vision for Diablo, but just like he said in his interview, the Diablo III team must drive a vision for the game that is true to us. We believe in Diablo and have stuck by it through years of hard development to make it a reality.
The foundation of the Diablo team was built from the remnants of Blizzard North: Our lead programmer, who built the basis of the Diablo III engine while at Blizzard North; our lead tech artist, who drove much of the combat visuals, FX, and skill direction of our classes and is one of the most avid Diablo II players you can find; our lead concept artist, who helped establish the core look of the game; Wyatt Cheng, our senior technical game designer, who writes many of our blogs and works tirelessly on the live game. All these people and many others made the commitment to Diablo even after Blizzard North shut down. It was hard for me to see their contributions be diminished by someone they worked alongside, and even harder for me not to try to jump to their defense. I only wish I'd done so in a more professional manner.
Joining the Diablo team was a dream come true for me. In my house, the name Diablo was always spoken in hushed tones. It meant late nights that turned into early mornings, moments of pure adrenaline and pure joy. It meant countless conversations, debates, scouring websites for good builds, and more than one or two sick days. When Diablo II was released, I took a week off work and sent my wife out of state... and she was pregnant at the time! I played Diablo II with my dad during one of the most difficult times of his life, and the experience brought me closer to him, and I hope helped him through it. I joined the Diablo team because the idea of a world without more Diablo seemed like a pretty crappy world to me. I wasn't sure if I'd be good enough. I'm still not sure. But I felt I had to try.
Regardless of how I've done, my team has been more than good enough, and I'm proud of the game we made together. We believe it's a great game. But Diablo III has flaws. It is not perfect. Sales mean nothing if the game doesn’t live on in all of our hearts, and standing by our games is what Blizzard does. Patch 1.0.4 is a step in the right direction, but we have no illusions that our work is done.
Playing Diablo III needs to be a rewarding experience. The new legendaries are a big step in the right direction, as are tweaks to item drop rates. But I'm not convinced that we've gone far enough. If you don't have that great feeling of a good drop being right around the corner -- and the burst of excitement when it finally arrives -- then we haven't done our jobs right. Out of our concern to make sure that Diablo III would have longevity, we were overly cautious about how we handled item drops and affixes. If 1.0.4 hasn’t fixed that, you can be sure we'll continue to address it.
Part of the problem, however, is not just item drops, but the variety of things to do within the game. Many of you have stated that there needs to be more to the game than just the item hunt, and we agree completely. The Paragon system is a step in the right direction, giving meta-progress for your time in the game, but it does little to address the variety of activities you can do while playing. I don't think there’s a silver-bullet solution to this problem, but I do think we can make this aspect of the game better, and as such we're planning more than just PvP for the next major patch. Not trying to be coy, but we're still firming things up and will talk about this as soon as we can.
Difficulty has been a constant source of division when discussing the game. Some players believe Diablo has never been about crushing challenges, but more about efficiency and farming. Some players want a game that tests them to their limits. Neither player is wrong. As it stands, Diablo III simply does not provide the tools to allow players to scale the game challenge to something appropriate for them. We set Inferno as the high watermark and took a one-size-fits-all approach to game challenge. Later in the development of Diablo II, the 'players 8' command -- which let people set monster difficulty -- was added to address this issue, and we're considering something similar for the next major Diablo III patch to allow players to make up their own minds about how hard or how easy is right for them.
The Auction House has also proven to be a big challenge. It adds a lot of power for players to trade and acquire items. Getting a great Monk drop that you can trade for better gear for your Wizard is obviously a great benefit, but it does come with a downside. The Auction House can short circuit the natural pace of item drops, making the game feel less rewarding for some players. This is a problem we recognize. At this point we're not sure of the exact way to fix it, but we’re discussing it constantly, and we believe it's a problem we can overcome.
While these are some of the major issues with Diablo III, they aren't the only things we're looking at. On a daily basis we ask ourselves if the classes are satisfying to play, if rares and champions are fun to fight, if they’re tuned well relative to normal monsters. Can we make further improvements to social elements of the game? How can items be even better?
We made Diablo III because we believe in the Diablo games. We think the gameplay is awesome, the world is compelling, and it's the game we all wanted to play. Because we believe in it, we'll continue to stand by it and make it better. We are committed to making Diablo III the best Diablo game to date, and we hope you'll continue to help us do just that.
Saying that, I'd like to apologize to all of you, the players in our community. You deserve better than my reaction to Dave's comments. You deserve more honest communication about the game and what we're doing to make it a more awesome experience for us all. We care about Diablo very much, and appreciate your passion for it. Without you, we wouldn't be able to do this, and for that I can't thank you enough.
For someone who is very bad at reading between the lines, you're sure insisting that others do it so well.
1. Dave was ASKED how he felt. And if you watched the interview at all you should be able to tell that the interviewer was trying VERY hard to get him to be a lot nastier. So yes, Dave was honest and yet professional, no other way to see that.
2. Jay reacted like a small child. Not exactly the type of personality that should be in his position in the first place. Human or not, when you're the game director of a franchise as popular as Diablo, working for a company as prolific as Blizzard, you should have a better temperament than that, or be smarter, but probably both.
3. His "heartfelt" "apology" was, I can guarantee you, a direct result of Mike Morhaime, or some other Blizzard higher-up, dragging Jay's ass into his office and saying "Look dude, you fucked up, go fix this and save some face", which he then tried to do. I.e. he only said those things because it's now plastered all over the internet.
Conclusion: David Brevik - 1 Jay Wilson - 0
You grow up.
Hellgate: London
David Brevik - 1 Jay Wilson -1
How short the memories of gamers really are.
Diablo II
Jay Wilson wouldn't even have a job right now if it weren't for the above ^^
This is a discussion about professionalism, not titles associated with their name.
Bad job trying to turn the topic elsewhere.
Now, on a lighter note, he doesn't pay my bills, so I could give 3 shits what he says/does. He gave me a game I like to play, and that's all I care about.
"Besides, I've been called worse on the basketball court." - Barak Obama
Last time I checked, David wanted to make a claymation turn based game, and needed Morhime and Co. to make it into the games they were.
Wilson worked on DOW and COH before D3, both games were fantastic successes.
David without Blizz backing made one of the biggest flops in gaming history (as in, an ACTUAL flop, not an imagined flop, it actually closed his studio down it flopped so bad.)
Again, so Jay spouted off a bit to much, get a life, get over it.
He is a GAME DEVELOPER, not a politician, not a public figure, just a dude who makes games.
Get your head on straight.
I could name a dozen big name producers/developers/etc that have a faaaaaaaaaaar longer list of "unprofessional" statements then what Jay has said.
Yet those are tiny little blips on the radar, because Blizzard fans are a writhing mass of garbage, and cling to anything they can hound on endlessly, the lack of any sort of glimmering hope of a life is all but snuffed by these mongrels.
The interview definitely seems like it was aimed at coaxing negative feedback out of Brevik.
In my opinion though you can't take the all of the positives of D1 and D2 and attribute them to Brevik, just like you can't take all the negatives of D3 and attribute them to Wilson. If Brevik had worked on the game alone who knows if we would have ever gotten a D2 at all. Whole teams worked on all games. Some of the team from Blizzard North went on to become more successful like Max Schaefer and his team, they've shown they have a good grasp at what it takes to make a good ARPG.
Please note how Brevik was the ONLY one left out of Schaefer and Co.s new studio.............. (when they were all together for Flagship)
Just saying.
Pretty sure Bill Roper was also? After Hellgate not doing well and Mythos being sold off before it was even finished that's when Schaefer branched out more by himself I think with Matt Uelmen on board to do music.
Bill went back to Cryptic on his own. (right after Hellgate)
And then he went to China for like, 4-5 years as a "special speaker".
And then he went into Radio.
*shrugs
Who knows, Marvel has had some hits, and some misses, all depends on who the dev house is behind them.
Im a comic nerd, so I always hold out hope that a Marvel/DC game will be great. (yup, even Breviks)
Clearly you have no idea how professional business is conducted. Most companies will have some form of social media clause in employee contracts as well as employee handbooks. They have them for a REASON. See Jay Wilson fiasco for an example why.
It doesn't matter if it's off the clock. What matters is that he is a public figure for a very large and well known company. His actions & his words publicly reflect on the company that employs him. It comes with the job.
Freedom of speech isn't a free pass to be a douche bag.
I think this country (in particular) needs to stop being so fucking apologetic. Dude shot his mouth off about DIablo 3 and the Diablo 3 team put it up his ass. None of them should be sorry for what they said. You can't expect to throw a punch and then another and then another and not eventually expect a reprisal.
I don't have any personal feelings about Jay Wilson at all, but give the dude a fucking break. If somebody's running off at the mouth out of sour grapes, he needs to be told to shut the hell up. Good on you, Jay.
He did Hellgate, Mythos and... not really sure passed that. Obviously Diablo 1 and 2.
^^^ This is how I kinda feel about it.
You have them all there, he is sitting at a 50% record for good/bad.
Marvel Heroes will be the game that tips the scale one way or the other.
To the person saying that the average age of players on the forums is 27, that's a bullshit number. I mean seriously what 12 year old would admit they're actually 12 years old. Yes there are a lot of immature adults as well and there are also a lot of rational adults to boot. So who the hell cares? Why does it even matter for you to claim that complainers are childish adults? You think their opinions are invalid because they are immature? In all honesty, you need to check yourself. Maybe take a step back and look at what you're saying and ask yourself whether you're doing the same thing. It bugs me when people throw out "facts" and make other people feel stupid especially when they are arguing for something just as stupid. (sigh) Hate breeds hate, guess this is true in this case.
My 2 cents and only post.
Edit: To the people talking crap about hellgate and mythos. They were innovatively conceived games with cult followings. They may have not been widely popular or even successful, but they were appreciated by hardcore gamers. Simply saying hellgate and mythos were bad games is just ignorant. Just like how saying D3 is bad game is also ignorant. D3 is a fine stand alone game with great appeal. It just shouldn't be called Diablo 3.