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Goodbye Blizzard, Hello Frost Giant!

Blogs > monk
Post a Reply
1 2 3 Next All
monk
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
United States8476 Posts
October 20 2020 16:01 GMT
#1
Seventeen years ago, I discovered teamliquid.net through my Googling of 4v4 BGH strategies—throughout high school and college, I followed Brood War through VLC streams and Warcraft III through PPLive. And when StarCraft II came out in 2010, I started contributing as a volunteer, authoring strategy guides, crafting tournament recaps, and ranking players on the basis of "power". At a certain point in my life, I was faced with the decision to either persist toward a more traditional career path or pursue my love and passion for gaming, esports, and StarCraft by officially joining the Teamliquid organization.

I chose StarCraft.

With this decision, I travelled the world for esports: Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, England, Finland, Sweden, and China (though, regrettably, never Korea). I got to live briefly in the TL house with Liquid'Hero and Liquid'TaeJa, where Hero asked me to teach him Hearthstone, and TaeJa learned my name I suspect for the sole reason of asking me to help him get rid of spiders. And yes, TaeJa never practiced, even in front of the boss. (It was pretty great.)

Through good fortune, I was then hired by Blizzard as Lead Co-op Designer of StarCraft II, where I truly felt I was able to apply my skills and talents to a passion. It was a dream come true. My team fully empowered me to make meaningful contributions to the game, a game held sacred, one that had so much influenced the direction of my life. It was a pure joy and an honor to see players tinker with and theorycraft around Commanders and balance tweaks I had a hand in, much as I had once done myself over the past 25 years with Blizzard RTS games.

All in all, StarCraft was my community, my tribe, and—as cliché as it may be—I'm eternally grateful it allowed me to make so many lifelong friends along the way.

Recently, I made the difficult decision to leave Blizzard. Though this is the end of my time on the StarCraft II development team, it is in no way the end of my involvement with its community. I'll do my best to continue engaging online and will probably attend even more offline events than before, COVID willing. I hope to see many of you at these events, and if I do, please don't be a stranger.

Going forward, I'll be putting my skills, passion, and heart into Frost Giant—a new game studio announced today with many of my old colleagues I worked with on the StarCraft II team. On this new adventure, we will build a new RTS that we hope will be worthy of the legacy of the great RTS games that have come before it.

And with that, I have but one thing left to say:
Please cheer for me. I hope to show good games.

En Taro, StarCraft.
Kevin "monk" Dong | @Solid_monk




****
Moderator
JimmyJRaynor
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Canada16679 Posts
October 20 2020 16:30 GMT
#2
On October 21 2020 01:01 monk wrote:
Through good fortune, I was then hired by Blizzard as Lead Co-op Designer of StarCraft II, where I truly felt I was able to apply my skills and talents to a passion. It was a dream come true. My team fully empowered me to make meaningful contributions to the game, a game held sacred, one that had so much influenced the direction of my life. It was a pure joy and an honor to see players tinker with and theorycraft around Commanders and balance tweaks I had a hand in, much as I had once done myself over the past 25 years with Blizzard RTS games.

i'm no expert. but in my average, diamond-leaguer opinion, Co-Op is off-the-charts fucking amazing. I speculate that part of the inspiration for Blizzard creating a "co op" sandbox was the Co-Op Campaign of Red Alert 3.

Overall, Red Alert 3's campaign had its positives and negatives. I always thought the co-op aspect of RA3's campaign was great. I always thought RTS, PvE Co-op had a place in the RTS genre.

As great as I thought Co-op PvE content could be ... as big of a proponent of it as I was.. I never imagined it would be done as brilliantly as Blizzard did it.

I had high hopes for SC2 co-op because I thought co-op PvE had a tonne of potential. You and your team exceeded those expectations.

Brilliant work man.... brilliant.
Ray Kassar To David Crane : "you're no more important to Atari than the factory workers assembling the cartridges"
Superouman
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
France2195 Posts
October 20 2020 16:36 GMT
#3
Seeing your path from TL to Frost Giant is inspirational.
Search "[SO]" on B.net to find all my maps ||| Cloud Kingdom / Turbo Cruise '84 / Bone Temple / Eternal Empire / Zen / Purity and Industry / Golden Wall / Fortitude / Beckett Industries / Waterfall
Liquid`MaNa
Profile Joined October 2009
Poland104 Posts
October 20 2020 16:37 GMT
#4
It was a pleasure working with you and thank you for contributing so much into Starcraft. I hope you will find joy in the new project and I wish you all the best there!

En Taro, Starcraft
Team Liquid
Nathanias
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States290 Posts
October 20 2020 16:37 GMT
#5
As someone who loved co-op before Monk was on-board, I can say without a doubt he's easily one of the best things that ever happened to it. Put a lot of effort into finding pain points and making the game more dynamic and fun without ruining what people originally liked.

I will always have respect for devs that ask community figures (as someone who makes tons of co-op content still) how to improve things and then actually implement those. Monk you might have left blizz but your impact on the game is gonna be felt forever. Cheers!
CommentatorNever give up, Never surrender
ZeromuS
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Canada13389 Posts
October 20 2020 16:41 GMT
#6
I am so happy for you and am excited to experience this whole new RTS journey! Best of luck to you and everyone else on Frost Giant!!
StrategyRTS forever | @ZeromuS_plays | www.twitch.tv/Zeromus_
philippo
Profile Joined March 2010
Sweden97 Posts
October 20 2020 16:42 GMT
#7
I will be following your development with great interest!
http://sv.justin.tv/sc2philippo
Musicus
Profile Joined August 2011
Germany23576 Posts
October 20 2020 16:45 GMT
#8
Congrats, it's so interesting to follow your journey, best of luck Monk!

With so much passion, I am really hyped for Frost Giants .

Maru and Serral are probably top 5.
sneakyfox
Profile Joined January 2017
8216 Posts
October 20 2020 16:53 GMT
#9
Great news, now please make an excellent game
"I saw what sneakyfox wrote on TL.net and it made me furious" - PartinG
salle
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Sweden5554 Posts
October 20 2020 16:56 GMT
#10
It's great seeing you're still able to follow your dream and passions. I'm also really looking forward to seeing what you guys at Frost Giant's will make for us.
Administrator"Ambitious but rubbish!" - Jeremy Clarkson
a9arnn
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States1537 Posts
October 20 2020 17:02 GMT
#11
Good luck at Frost Giant <3
VOD finder guy for sc2ratings.com/ ! aka: ogndrahcir, a9azn2 | Go ZerO, Stork, Sea, and KawaiiRice :D | nesc2league.com/forum/index.php | youtube.com/watch?v=oaGtjWL5mZo
xuanzue
Profile Joined October 2010
Colombia1747 Posts
October 20 2020 17:03 GMT
#12
the frost giant website says: account suspended
Dominions 4: "Thrones of Ascension".
Chaggi
Profile Joined August 2010
Korea (South)1936 Posts
October 20 2020 17:10 GMT
#13
Best of luck Kevin! I'm looking forward to the next generation RTS. It's been an absolute pleasure watching SC2 grow under your thumb.
shiroiusagi
Profile Blog Joined September 2011
SoCal, USA3955 Posts
October 20 2020 17:19 GMT
#14
Congrats Monk! All the best at Frost Giant!!
Graphics@shiroiusagi_ | shiroiusagi.net
lichter
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
October 20 2020 17:23 GMT
#15
Good luck man
AdministratorYOU MUST HEED MY INSTRUCTIONS TAKE OFF YOUR THIIIINGS
ZigguratOfUr
Profile Blog Joined April 2012
Iraq16955 Posts
October 20 2020 17:29 GMT
#16
Good luck!
KadaverBB
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Germany25657 Posts
October 20 2020 17:35 GMT
#17
Monk <3
AdministratorLaws change depending on who's making them, but justice is justice
Psyonic_Reaver
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
United States4336 Posts
October 20 2020 17:59 GMT
#18
Excited for your future. Good luck!
So wait? I'm bad? =(
TheEmulator
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
28087 Posts
October 20 2020 19:20 GMT
#19
Hi Monk

Good luck at Frost Giant, I'm sure you will be awesome.
Administrator
algue
Profile Joined July 2011
France1436 Posts
October 20 2020 19:29 GMT
#20
Why did you leave Blizzard
rly ?
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