I wish you a beautiful Wednesday. Actually, I wanted to take my time today to express how terrible I think it is that Blizzard has banned numerous cards from the arena of Hearthstone . But since the gentlemen and ladies probably have noticed it, they thought, “Damn, before Cortyn complains, we need to come up with something else.” And they promptly succeeded.
Goodbye, Thrall, Varian, and Ragnaros
When I woke up yesterday and turned on the PC, a news article on our site caught my eye that I could hardly believe: Chris Metzen hangs up his profession and retires.I have to honestly say that this affects me much more than I thought it would. For practically “always,” the games that Metzen has mostly worked on in leadership positions have accompanied me throughout my life. A large part of the stories of Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo came from his pen. His name is on the countless rulebooks of the Warcraft pen & paper games.
A bit exaggeratedly speaking, Chris Metzen is undoubtedly responsible for half of my leisure activities, in one way or another. By the way, he is also the voice of numerous characters, such as Thrall, Varian Wrynn, and Ragnaros – at least when you play in English.
This sounds almost like an obituary and in a way it is. Because retirement in this case is nothing other than a farewell to what he has accomplished so far.
But I will probably miss his legendary speeches the most, which he delivered at the beginning of each BlizzCon. When Chris Metzen listed for me with “Geek is” what unites us nerds, and that no one has to be ashamed of our hobby, I had goosebumps every time.
Unknown yet an important part
Sure, basically Metzen is, for me, nothing more than “just some developer” whom you will never meet personally – and yet, he has influenced me with his games and especially his stories like few others.
Blizzard loses one of its greatest heroes. Sure, where someone leaves, there is also room for something new – that need not be bad. But replacing a person like Metzen is a task that must first be accomplished.
I am definitely grateful for what he has accomplished for almost my entire life. I hope he enjoys spending time with his family now. And to be completely honest, I hope that after two years it gets so annoying for him that he returns to the video game business.
I’ll switch to depression mode for a week. After that, Hearthstone can brace itself.
