After 12 years, not all founders of WoW are still with Blizzard. But who is still bravely holding the flag high?
With its 12 years, World of Warcraft is already a fossil among MMORPGs – although surprisingly lively. But in a dozen years, a lot changes. What has happened to all the well-known developers? We have compiled a list of the most famous developers who have worked for Blizzard since the beginning of the game – or very shortly after – and what has become of them over time.
Pardo, Kaplan, Metzen – What are the fathers of WoW doing today?
Jeffrey Kaplan, who may still be known to some veterans as Tigole, has not been involved in World of Warcraft since 2009. He is now the Game Director for Overwatch and is developing a completely new franchise, so there is little time left for further work on World of Warcraft. Together with Chris Metzen and Pat Nagle (Yes, he is named after the fisherman), he worked back then on world, quest, and raid design. A large part of the “original” game world was his responsibility.
Fun fact: Jeff Kaplan was hired by Blizzard because he was one of the most successful guild leaders in Everquest Online.
Rob Pardo has already not been at Blizzard since 2014 and has now founded his own development studio Bonfire. The expectations are high because when a former Blizzard employee leaves one of the most successful game studios to start anew, there must be some really good ideas behind it.
Chris Metzen (actually Christopher Vincent Metzen) worked for a long time at Blizzard as a Game Designer and is generally considered the mind behind most of the stories we experience in World of Warcraft. A large part of the lore comes from his fingers and even outside the game world, he continued to weave the universe – for example, in the pen & paper rulebooks for Warcraft P&P or in the latest story compendium “Warcraft Chronicles”. Just recently, in the fall of 2016, he announced his retirement to spend more time with his family. Additionally, panic attacks and ongoing performance pressure made work unbearable for him.
Alex Afrasiabi, still known to some as Furor, comes from the era of Everquest Online just like Kaplan and has also loudly expressed his opinion in the forums like Kaplan. Blizzard was so impressed that they hired him to serve as a quest writer. Despite initial criticism, he is still the Creative Director of World of Warcraft and works diligently on every expansion.
Recently, Tom Chilton also “got caught” and left the WoW team to work on another project within Blizzard. What exactly it is remains unclear. Speculations vary widely: An Overwatch single-player? Diablo 4? Or something completely different? In a few years, BlizzCon will surely tell us more.
Mark Kern, who was then the team leader of World of Warcraft, is now likely a bit of a thorn in Blizzard’s side. After leaving in 2006, he founded the (only moderately successful) “Red 5 Studio”, which was responsible for Firefall. In more recent history, he has primarily advocated for the fans of classic World of Warcraft who wish for a “Vanilla server” like Nostalrius to be able to play the game in its original form. He personally delivered a petition with thousands of signatures to Blizzard.
Of course, these are just a few of the minds behind World of Warcraft who are still involved today. All those people who you usually see on stage at BlizzCon. For such a game to really run smoothly, it naturally requires many more developers.
This was a look back at the beginnings of WoW. In this article, we deal with a “possible but unlikely future”:
World of Warcraft: This is what the Twilight Forest would look like if WoW had current graphics
