HearthPwn Card Design Competition - Perpetual Commotion Finalist Voting
Alarak & Braxis Holdout Release, Machines of War Showdown, Rotation & Sales Sep 13
Chris Metzen Leaving Blizzard
Chris Metzen Retirement
Chris Metzen has decided to retire from the gaming industry and shift his focus more towards his personal life and family.
He posted a farewell message on the official forums, a deep and emotional one. Specially for those who still believe Blizzard developers love their games and worlds as much as we do! Take some time to read, and feel, it by yourself.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
[Posted on behalf of Chris Metzen]
I had just turned twenty years old when I started working at Blizzard. Seems like a lifetime ago. Guess it was. Those first few years were the start of a very grand adventure for me, one that would take me around the world, introduce me to thousands of wonderful geeks just like me—and ultimately shape the course of my adult life.
Of course when I started, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I had no idea how to make games or build entertainment products.…
But I had an insatiable passion for ideas. For stories. For heroes.
My only real training before joining Blizzard was the long-running D&D campaign I had with my closest friends—Sam, Mike P., Daniel, and Mikey C. (you know who you are, boys…HAMRO!). Building ideas—vast worldscapes, characters, and plotlines with my friends was my first great love. I lived for it. It was a safe space amid the tension and change of some rough teenage years. The grand refuge of D&D was a glorious meeting of minds and imaginations where I felt I truly belonged.
It was a space where friendship and imagination were inextricably linked.
The sharing of ideas on the fly, the crazy, unexpected turns other players would take—it stretched our imaginations in ways we’d never have dreamt of on our own. I loved how roleplaying through adventures taught us so much about each other—and, more often than not, ourselves. Imagining together helped us make sense of the crazy world we were growing up in. It made us stronger together.
I wouldn’t really understand the depth of it for many years, but I had learned an important truth from my friends back then:
Creativity is relational.
Looking back at my years at Blizzard, I see now how profoundly this idea has shaped my career. I see how profoundly my friends and coworkers at Blizzard have shaped me as a person.
For nearly twenty-three years I’ve had the very distinct privilege of shaping worlds and building games with the brightest creative minds in entertainment. I’ve walked with giants (and stood on some giants’ shoulders, too).
In short, I’ve had the time of my life.
I pretty much had the coolest job ever—but the truth is, sometimes it was really hard. Building games with dozens of brilliant, passionate alpha-geeks with their own red-hot instincts and perspectives can be pretty tricky. Coming to consensus about certain design decisions, story motifs, or courses of art direction takes a lot of communication, patience, and “give and take.” It stretches you. Sometimes it wasn’t all that pretty. But engaging with your teammates and collaborating through the potential quagmire of all that creative tension is where the real magic happens.
It’s not just the decisions you come to—or even the final shape of the product you craft.… It’s bigger than that—and infinitely more important. True collaboration builds trust—and trust is the basis of all lasting relationships. With trust you build more than just a great product.
You build a TRIBE…that can build anything.
A family of craftsmen.
That’s what Blizzard has been for me. My second family, through all of life’s ups and downs, it’s always been there. The great, geeky backdrop of my life. I don’t just mean “the job” or even the creative mission—but the people. The people who over and over lifted me up, believed in me—and pushed me to find my potential as both an artist and as a leader all these years.
To my Blizzard brothers and sisters…I wish I had the words.
Everything just sounds…trite.
All I can think of is…
You helped me believe in myself and achieve every one of my wildest dreams.
I am forever grateful to you.
I love you all with everything I’ve got.
Thank you.
And to all of you out there in Blizzard’s vast gaming community—those of you I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in person and all of you around the world I’ve only heard about—thank you.
Thank you all for letting me be a special part of your community. For letting me belong with you. We’ve shared countless adventures together and I’ve always been overwhelmed and humbled by your passion for our games as well your commitment to each other. Thank you for all the BlizzCon hugs, smiles, handshakes, and stories over the years. You will never know how much you’ve all touched my heart and inspired me to give my all into this craft.
With that said, I’ll try to get down to the point, here. I’ve come to a turn in the road. A new, far quieter chapter in my life looms ahead.
I am retiring.
Yup.
Hangin’ up my guns.
Clockin’ out.
Takin’ the last gryphon out of Stormwind.
You get the picture.
Crazy, I know.
It’s a massive change for me, but it’s one I’ve been looking forward to for a while now. It’s ironic given the fact that things have never been better or more energized at Blizzard. Just this year alone has been incredible.
Legion’s arrival.
The launch of Overwatch.
The Warcraft feature film.
I’ve never been more proud of Blizzard and the quality of its products than I am now. It’s remarkable that even after all these years we can still reach new heights and take the world for an amazing ride. I believe Blizzard’s future is brighter than ever.
I won’t lie—it’s going to be really hard stepping away from these worlds that I love. But I’m content that I’m leaving them in the hands of the most passionate, talented, and dedicated craftsmen ever assembled.
I can’t wait to see where Blizzard’s worlds go next—and to experience them first-hand like everyone else does. As a fan. As an adventurer. Right back to the start.
That’s just so cool…
The reason I use the word “retire” is because I’m not going to some other company or starting up new projects or anything remotely like that. It’s been a long, amazing stretch of years. Now it’s time to slow it down. Rest. Lay around on the couch and get fat. Well, fatter.…
Seriously though, I’ll be focusing on the one thing that matters most to me in all the world—my family. They’re the core of my life and the source of my deepest joy and inspiration. In addition to raising our two little ones, we recently welcomed our new baby into the family! Being home with them all, having time and space to really live…to love my wife with all my strength…that’s my career now.
And I’ve never been happier.
Ever. ☺
Peace out, y’all.
I love you all.
I’ll see you online.
Chris
Meta Update - Top 10 S7 Builds
Rhykker made a video update to the Top 10 Meta Builds for Season 7. His previous one used PTR data, which was arguably not completely reliable. But now with the live Leaderboards it's possible to have a much better picture of what the top of the ladder looks like. Great stuff - check it out!
These are currently the best builds for Diablo 3 patch 2.4.2 season 7 based for solo GR pushing. Wizard is tops, followed by monk, then Crusader and Witch Doctor, and lastly Demon Hunter and Barbarian. Gameplay shown in video. Our PTR predictions of the best builds were mostly accurate, with some surprises. Also, we compare regions: NA, EU, Asia.
Finally i got it. Zero(pS) is a Rhykker fan and a sub.
Every single Rhykker video is posted here, no matter how dumb it is.
FeelsBadMan
But sure. I'm sure "every single Rhykker video is posted here." Let's see... two Rhykker videos posted in September, two Rhykker videos posted in August, two Rhykker videos posted in July. That's six out of 27 Rhykker videos that were uploaded in that time - or an average of one Rhykker video posted to Dfans every two weeks, less than 25% of Rhykker videos. Yeah, Zero really shows favoritism here.
Also, this particular video was a good choice for Zero to share with the community. It's data. I can understand why you may not want to watch a speculation video, but if you consider this video something "dumb" and not worth watching, then I question why you are on a Diablo fansite at all.
Also, this video covers over 10 builds, and nearly all of them - or all of them - can be found in the build section of this site. I personally have at least 3-4 that I put into Dfans, and others have covered the other builds.
I like it how you counted all your overwatch and other non-diablo videos into these "27 Rhykker videos". Just 25%! Math magic here!
Except this is Diablo fan site, yes. And almost all of your diablo-related videos were posted here. One by one. Almost immidiately. No matter how bad, speculating and secondarily they were. So yeah, it's favoritism here. Clearly. I do not blame the admins though. They are posting what they want. Maybe we will see PewDiePie video soon as well, i heard he's broke now.
I want to make a small suggestion for admins, to get out of the favoritism bubble, do some search on youtube and builds section and stop posting same people over and over again.
For Rhykker: Crawl out of your egocentric cave sometimes, especially with your statements that "fewer and fewer people making Diablo content". There are still tonns of people who play the game and do videos and builds. You know that for a fact because you are stealing, consuming and accumulating this data all the time.
PS: And i didn't say this exact video is dumb. It is in fact a very good video. Maybe the best of all your videos for the last 3 months. All previous are mostly speculating junk or stolen data. You admitted yourself that you don't even play the game anymore.
I like Rhykker vídeos. I even enjoyed the speculation vídeo about the best builds for season 7, and liked this one even more.
He speaks very well and is kinda funny.
"Hi Folks
This
Is
RHYKKER."
I even make some impressions on his opening line during the day, sometimes.
He also knows a lot about the game and keep up to date with blizzard stuff.
Actually, this News about the vídeo was the reason i entered dfans this time, and i had already watched the vídeo.
So AngryRoleplayer, seems to me you are just jelly because it wasnt one of your videos that was posted.
Its D3 content afterall, theres no such thing as "too much d3 content"..
Rhykker, keep doing your Good work and ill keep watching your videos, bro.
Also that sad feeling when there's so much focus on such a non-important matter that the amazing, emotional farewell message from a Blizzard employee is pushed aside with no comments. That's the real FeelsBadMan for me =/
I for one understand just how much these decisions really hurt us, like for real, in real lifez. A lot of people would just leave and not bother much with that kind of message - I'm happy that Chris Metzen isn't one of them. His message made my day.
ahh so chris is a D&D player this is encouraging for me.
One more nail in the coffin and all you talk about is the video.
retiring at the age of 42... wow
This is Rhykker that got banned for botting? Hmmmm interesting
Good luck to Chris, I'm happy and maybe even a little envious that he was able to be a part of Blizzard as he did. If anything I actually feel inspired reading what he wrote.
For 42, he does look old. I guess it was time to retire. Samwise Didier while older looks younger.
Firebats should not be surprising being it was the top WD build for multiple seasons kinda recently too. Otherwise cool analysis!
We gotta thank Chris Metzen for making the battlecruiser operational.
It's pretty uncool of Rhykker not to credit Wudijo with the LON FoK build considering he popularized it.