Oh, hearing this is sad. But I'm happy he's looking out for himself. Still, Metzen will be missed.
They need to completely redesign each class and spec from the ground up, not just the DK's; they were at some point stable during wrath but that just made every other class feel unbalanced. Then comes to question of raiding, I personally see an average of 4 DK's within a typical raid (even less if you count world bosses). I've seen my Healers leave if one or both tanks are DK's, because, they are so unpredictable to heal and can survive on their own while the stressed out healers spend their cd's on healing the wrong player and letting the strong dps die due to that can't heal themselves. I feel like we already experienced this in other expansions. At the end, you can clearly see how one class/spec can and will affect everybody. Just a little food for thought!
It is so weird seeing a legend, an icon, and in a lot of ways, a role model of mine to be as gullible as me - or you know, a regular person. I hope he "recovers" and starts to create again, if even as a hobby. Without pressure.
He'll still be a voice actor, regardless.
I miss the original death knights. I had such fun with the come-back-as-a-ghoul ability.
Best wishes to Metzen
Respect to Chris Metzen for talking so openly about this and the fact that he is looking out for himself! Thanks alot for all the great stuff you created and take care!
I wish Metzen would be like Blizzard's hype man at Blizzcon still though. Like why can't he just stop working on their games and just come out of retirement every Blizzcon to hype up the audience. He is so good at it! He can just be informed of all the new stuff coming up and be told what to tell the audience about. Would be a fun way to still be involved in the community and not have all that stress! He is such an awesome guy and I missed him at Blizzcon this year.
Christ Metzen thank you for several decades of joys & creativity you brought upon millions. For opening yourself up stating that we all got flaws & stress is no good. Once again thank you for sharing this with us.
Being a young man of twenty-one with a hard exterior this broke me down into tears twice. I feel a wholeness with the world after hearing Chris talk about his life. I felt many of these emotions before and to hear a grown man talk about needing help makes me feel alright about my own problems. This helped more than my own vocabulary could ever explain. Thank you Chris and Perculia for sharing this.
Hmmm... around the 6 to 7 minute mark he said he hadn't been into work for several months. At most just touching base every so often. Then he fronts up and retires.Around the ten minute mark he delves into his personal psychological situation. Anxiety.Around the 11 minute mark he cites Titan as the tipping point. The incredible disappointment that the development team of which he was a part just could not agree on how to push the project forward.(I know from personal experience how frustrating it can be to have a group of driven creatives, heels dug in, committed with all their heart to their own way to push forward a project. Recipe for failure)A little more insight into his situation, the response from his employer and the incredible space he needed to be able to make a decision.By the 14 minute mark I can see that he has really had a chance over the months of downtime while he was still employed at Blizzard to really analyse the situation.I think we can all agree that on the basis of all the very personal details he revealed, he had to leave Blizzard for the sake of his sanity and his family.Great decision Chris.Don't hurry back. And I mean that in a really nice way!(By the 17 minute mark you can see he wanted to go out on a high and after the failure of Titan. You succeeded many times over Chris!)
Such a frank and honest interview, really brought a lot home, and just bolstered my respect for Chris even higher.
Metzen was an excellent, charismatic hype man at Blizzcon, but I also think Ion Hazzikotas does a great job of it too. He's certainly less socially awkward seeming than a lot of other Blizzard employees. Not that's a bad thing, they're game designers, not orators or comedians.