Yesterday Blizzard announced that Jeff Kaplan will no longer work for the company. He was most recently the head of Overwatch. But it’s not just the Overwatch professionals that are affected by his departure; Kaplan also played an important role for WoW players.
What happened? On April 20, Jeff Kaplan announced his departure from Blizzard. In a short farewell letter, he thanked the company for 19 years:
- Kaplan started his career at Blizzard as QA for Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos
- Later he became a quest designer for WoW and was Game Director along with Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack
- After that, he was involved in Project Titan, which was then canceled
- Most recently, he was the head of Overwatch. He became the face of the shooter, as he recorded the developer videos himself
Kaplan was always seen as close to the fans and brought laughter and good cheer. Accordingly, players, professionals, and shoutcasters who have worked with the developer have reacted emotionally.
“His commitment was remarkable”
How does the Overwatch community react? A very moving action was carried out by several professional players and teams. They included the word Jeff in their Twitter names and changed their profile pictures. This resulted in creations such as:
- Dallas JEFFuel – the team that is actually called Dallas Fuel and plays in the Overwatch League
- Seoul JEFFasty – actually Seoul Dynasty, a Korean esports team
- Jefflanta Reign – actually Atlanta Reign, an American esports team
But some shoutcasters and players from the past also spoke up:
- Grand Marshal Reinforce, a current shoutcaster, thanked Kaplan for the time spent around Overwatch: “I owe him a lot of incredible gaming experiences, and I feel lucky to have had great conversations with him personally” (via Twitter).
- Jake Lyon, the coach of the Outlaws team, expressed much gratitude toward Kaplan: “Thank you for daring so much. Thank you for creating a world in which we can see ourselves as part of it. Thank you, Jeff Kaplan” (via Twitter).
- Brennon Hook, also a shoutcaster for Overwatch, praised Kaplan’s passion: “The man had a passion and an aura of charisma around him that was so obvious whenever I visited the office. He always made me feel welcome, even though I came from a different side of gaming” (via Twitter).
- Malik Still, a former Overwatch pro, particularly praised Kaplan’s closeness and passion: “Since the alpha days and even before that, Jeff Kaplan’s commitment to the OW community was remarkable. He is truly an amazing Game Director and just a great guy.”
Kaplan was previously an avid MMORPG player and a notorious flamer
Kaplan has not only touched the Overwatch community. Even before his work on WoW, he led a guild in Everquest.
In this context, he was very similar to many players who love their MMORPG. Even today, there are still screenshots from old forums, where he, under the name “Tigole Bitties,” called out the developers of Everquest in surprisingly aggressive language to fix their “goddamn, bugged, half-finished bosses”:
Just a few weeks after this rant, Kaplan announced that Blizzard Entertainment had hired him as a developer. He said at the time:
“I hope my connection to World of Warcraft serves to make MMORPG fans feel more comfortable now that ‘One of us’ is on the other side of the garden fence and cares about the interests of the players.”
Jeff Kaplan in April 2002, before joining Blizzard
In WoW, Kaplan made a name for himself as one of the first quest designers alongside Pat Nagle. Many of the iconic original quests that we know today from WoW Classic come from Kaplan.
In WoW itself, there are still numerous reminders of Kaplan. For example, there are the items Tigule’s Harpoon and Tigule and Foror’s Strawberry Ice Cream, named after his nickname.
How does the WoW community react to Kaplan’s departure?
- In the official WoW forum, there are several threads in various languages discussing Kaplan. The user Ricochet also praises Kaplan’s charisma there: “Kaplan was very popular in the community, he had a certain charismatic charm that people liked. Almost everything he said was worthy of becoming a meme” (via Blizzard).
- In the WoW subreddit, there is a thread about Jeff Kaplan that has been in the top 3 for almost 20 hours with over 4,500 upvotes. Many players there thank Kaplan for the great gaming experience he provided them in Vanilla WoW (via reddit).
- The well-known website WOWHead has also posted about Kaplan’s departure (via WOWHead).
- Twitch streamer Asmongold is fundamentally affected by so many well-known developers leaving Blizzard (via Twitter). Recently, the “father of WoW Classic” left the company.
Where is Kaplan headed now? That is currently unknown. However, it is possible that he is being drawn to one of the projects at Mike Morhaime’s studio. The former Blizzard president left the studio in 2018 and founded two of his own studios, which sound like the “Blizzard of old”:
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