Diablo III game director Jay Wilson steps down to tackle new project

[Shawn Knight]

Jay Wilson recently announced plans to step down from his position at Blizzard as Diablo III director after more than seven years of working on the project. He’s not planning to leave the company but rather work on a different project at Blizzard, according to a post he penned in the Battle.net forums.

Wilson said working on the game was one of the most challenging and rewarding periods of his life but he’s reached a point creatively where he is looking forward to working on something new. Over the course of the next several weeks, he will be transitioning away from Diablo III and into a new, unspecified role at Blizzard.

He noted that the decision wasn’t an easy one but ultimately it’s what felt right. It’s no secret that a number of community members disagreed with some of the decisions Wilson made with regards to the game – something he addresses personally in his departure message.

“I'm proud of Diablo III, and despite our differences at times I will miss the community that has formed around it. I feel I have made many mistakes in managing that relationship, but my intent was always to provide a great gaming experience, and be as open and receptive as possible, while still sticking true to the vision the Diablo team has for the game.”

Fans of Diablo III are told that his departure won’t negatively impact the ongoing support for the game. The team that made the title will carry forward as normal with lots of plans for the future. That future includes patch 1.0.7 which is reportedly well underway.

Late last year, Wilson announced the fact that there won’t be a team deathmatch mode for Diablo III as originally planned. Objective issues and class balancing were two of the main elements that led to the mode being scrapped.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/51379-diablo-iii-game-director-jay-wilson-steps-down-to-tackle-new-project.html

 

[treetops]

I wish they would just go to the old d2 team with a dump truck full of money and ask them to work on diablo 3.

 

[lipe123]

I feel I have made many mistakes in managing that relationship, but my intent was always to provide a great gaming experience

Yet he never once tried to address his complete disconnect with the players and kept pushing absolutely bogus ideas and patches.
A recent patch (week or so ago) finally addressed issues from MONTHS back that would have taken minutes to fix like the stupid timer that just goes higher and higher as you die before you can rejoin the game.

This guy was on a crusade to just do it the Jay Wilson way and the community despised him to say the least! Maybe now there is a chance the game will get back to its roots and be fun again.

 

[Sniped_Ash]

Not sure how I feel about this. I certainly played a bunch of D3, beating it once with every class and getting to Act 1 of hell or inferno with my witch doctor, but I stopped when it became clear that the endgame was pretty much grinding for gold to buy stuff off the AH in order to progress further. I liked the core gameplay and the ability to switch up and experiment with runes & abilities, so a lot of the design decisions that Jay Wilson was lambasted for were okay by me. It's just the endgame that turned me off and 2012 certainly offered plenty of new games to go off and play instead. And I did that before they made any changes to the endgame, so I can't comment on those.

 

[treetops]

Not sure how I feel about this. I certainly played a bunch of D3, beating it once with every class and getting to Act 1 of hell or inferno with my witch doctor, but I stopped when it became clear that the endgame was pretty much grinding for gold to buy stuff off the AH in order to progress further. I liked the core gameplay and the ability to switch up and experiment with runes & abilities, so a lot of the design decisions that Jay Wilson was lambasted for were okay by me. It's just the endgame that turned me off and 2012 certainly offered plenty of new games to go off and play instead. And I did that before they made any changes to the endgame, so I can't comment on those.

I completely agree, they should have at least let us duel d2 style for fun, balanced or not its something to do. Yeah as soon as I realized the only thing to do next was grind for gold I quit in about act3 inferno.

 

[Guest]

A director is expected to enchance the game and d3 was, in terms of graphics and a few more (of course, these will be enhanced.) But, he defninitely screwed up D3 more than he helped it and I wonder what will he screw next.