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Canada16217 Posts
Back in June, we invited Ryan Schutter, the creator of the popular GameHeart overlay, to join with the StarCraft development team in creating an official WCS GameHeart overlay. In the short time he was here, Ryan really made a mark. He developed a strong collaborative relationship with the designers, artists, and engineers on the team, and had a clear idea of what he wanted to accomplish with WCS GameHeart. Still, he remained flexible and proactive in learning and improving through feedback.
After his time working with us was up, we realized we didn’t want it to end. Ryan had proven through his community contributions and through his time working with us that he would be a valuable addition to the team. With these things in mind, we’re excited to announce that Ryan has officially joined as a Technical Designer onto our StarCraft II development team.
We’re extremely happy to have Ryan onboard, and so grateful to be bringing on someone with so much passion for this game and its community. Ryan’s work in those areas is bound to continue. Moving forward, you can expect to find Ryan posting on forums, social media, and continuing his work on GameHeart and other arcade projects.
Welcome Ryan!
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United States33432 Posts
best signing of the transfer window
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United States23455 Posts
No brainer of the century.
Good job, Ryan!
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
does this mean blizz might hire me in 2019
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Hopefully he will fix his WCS overlay and make it not totally suck.
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Awesome!!! Best of luck dude, your work is iconic for this scene and much appreciated!
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Good to see. Especially great to see Blizzard 'creating' a job for him to contribute to SC2. Putting more money into SC2 in new ways. Maybe this is all just a glorified way of announcing that he just got stuck with fixing the relatively infinite list of Bnet bugs, though XD!
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Nice, hope he does good work!
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Thank you, Blizzard, for seeing the community approval and realizing he could do great things for you in-house, too. Congrats Ryan for catching a sweet job.
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your Country52797 Posts
Wow, this is really good. Maybe Blizzard will hire new mapmakers next ;D
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The obvious move. Blizzard has some sense, after all.
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On January 09 2015 08:43 lichter wrote:
does this mean blizz might hire me in 2019
But you'll still be stuck in kespajail then...
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I fear his productivity might drop and his talent might disappear now that he's with Blizzard
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does this mean we now have to hate him since he is part of the oh so evil and greedy Blizzard?!?!?
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On January 09 2015 09:07 dAPhREAk wrote:
does this mean we now have to hate him since he is part of the oh so evil and greedy Blizzard?!?!?
He's officially lazy and doesn't listen to the community, yes.
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Seeker
Where dat snitch at?37032 Posts
Wow. Congratulations to him and Blizzard! Expecting some good high level stuff from them in the future!
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On January 09 2015 09:07 dAPhREAk wrote:
does this mean we now have to hate him since he is part of the oh so evil and greedy Blizzard?!?!?
On January 09 2015 09:02 Shinespark wrote:
I fear his productivity might drop and his talent might disappear now that he's with Blizzard
It has (already) begun
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On January 09 2015 08:49 The_Templar wrote:
Wow, this is really good. Maybe Blizzard will hire new mapmakers next ;D
Seriously... Why don't they also hire like, retiring pro-players so that they can actually balance the game? Think how cool it'd be if Idra or Qxc were hired by Blizzard...
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Wow this is so good to see! Our community members are truly the best
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NICE! My wish list is a Starcraft app to observe games. (Non twitch, actual game observation)
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I do hope they change the current WCS overlay. Forget non optimal it's worse than the default overlay that came in early in WoL. That Blizzard hired him kind of makes me concerned about the direction they think overlays should evolve (huge fonts while showing as little information as possible).
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I really thought that was already the case pretty much.
I hope he gave a big boost to the battlenet and SC2 interface and UI team.
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On January 09 2015 09:14 Blargh wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2015 08:49 The_Templar wrote:
Wow, this is really good. Maybe Blizzard will hire new mapmakers next ;D Seriously... Why don't they also hire like, retiring pro-players so that they can actually balance the game? Think how cool it'd be if Idra or Qxc were hired by Blizzard...
While it would be cool, I think the main reason that Blizzard doesn't do this is because of biased a specific player might have to the game, or the changes that they would be allowed to make from their suggestions would be too little to compensate for the position. I think they want people who have real world "experience" in balancing games.
Also consider the fact that they would have to pay Idra or Qxc when they have mentioned several times that blizzard reaches out to pro players for feedback as well as suggestions, so why make a paid position when you could have the opinion of current progamers for free.
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On January 09 2015 09:15 Yakikorosu wrote:
makes me concerned about the direction they think overlays should evolve (huge fonts while showing as little information as possible).
Indeed. Gameheart is great but the actual overlay used along side it matters equally! ESL used the blocky-less-info layout in their last event (san jose I think), it does feel like a step back in some ways even with gameheart showing extra stuff like drone kills or upgrades. I would guess that they don't want to turn casuals off from SC2 with information overload? Which ironically is exactly the opposite of what players and regular viewers want.
GSLs overlay is hands down the nicest imho, and the bro-love of tastosis warms my heart. Has to be good that gameheart has found a home at blizz regardless. It's one thing blizz has always been good at, learning from the community about which UI features were popular and integrating them into the game. Taken them a while with SC2, but better late than never hey.
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On January 09 2015 09:27 zeratul_jf wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2015 09:14 Blargh wrote:On January 09 2015 08:49 The_Templar wrote:
Wow, this is really good. Maybe Blizzard will hire new mapmakers next ;D Seriously... Why don't they also hire like, retiring pro-players so that they can actually balance the game? Think how cool it'd be if Idra or Qxc were hired by Blizzard... While it would be cool, I think the main reason that Blizzard doesn't do this is because of biased a specific player might have to the game, or the changes that they would be allowed to make from their suggestions would be too little to compensate for the position. I think they want people who have real world "experience" in balancing games. Also consider the fact that they would have to pay Idra or Qxc when they have mentioned several times that blizzard reaches out to pro players for feedback as well as suggestions, so why make a paid position when you could have the opinion of current progamers for free.
I'm pretty sure Destiny addressed something like this. The reason why hiring current progamers would be bad is because they would be biased towards making the game more standard because if you're a pro-gamer, having to re-learn certain game mechanics or new units can actually put on financial burdens. If you make it a paid position, the pressure of making a living off playing the game is off the shoulders, and can focus on making the game more fun to play, spectator-friendly, etc; in other words, they would be able to suggest radical changes to the game. Though I still think the input of current pro-gamers is still valuable, I don't think that a dedicated, paid position would be a waste on Blizzard's end.
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On January 09 2015 09:14 Blargh wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2015 08:49 The_Templar wrote:
Wow, this is really good. Maybe Blizzard will hire new mapmakers next ;D Seriously... Why don't they also hire like, retiring pro-players so that they can actually balance the game? Think how cool it'd be if Idra or Qxc were hired by Blizzard...
It sounds nice, but I think Blizzard wants to hire people with actual design and programming skills. I don't think these type of companies have much use for "idea" guys, as ideas can be found everywhere and are usually free.
Unless they want to stick them on the QA team, I know a lot of former WoW raiders get hired to do QA for WoW.
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Ok Blizzard, you needed a good mapmaker, and you have found a good one. Now youa need a goodmaphacker... Oh wait! I mean, you need someone to stop maphacking, eheh
Gj to Ryan
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Wow GZ to him (and blizzard, motivated passionate employees don't fall off trees!)
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On January 09 2015 10:09 lestye wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2015 09:14 Blargh wrote:On January 09 2015 08:49 The_Templar wrote:
Wow, this is really good. Maybe Blizzard will hire new mapmakers next ;D Seriously... Why don't they also hire like, retiring pro-players so that they can actually balance the game? Think how cool it'd be if Idra or Qxc were hired by Blizzard... It sounds nice, but I think Blizzard wants to hire people with actual design and programming skills. I don't think these type of companies have much use for "idea" guys, as ideas can be found everywhere and are usually free. Unless they want to stick them on the QA team, I know a lot of former WoW raiders get hired to do QA for WoW.
No... But an ex pro-gamer has infinitely more knowledge about the game than any of their employees (probably combined). Of course, I don't think Blizzard would ever do it, but I think it would help tremendously in making SC2 a real high quality competitive game.
I wouldn't think it'd be that necessary if they didn't make the stupidest suggestions and unit additions ever. While I think a couple of the ideas they have are alright, there has never been one where I thought "Wow, that's a really good idea" except for when something was blatantly overpowered/broken. They just have no clue what to do for maps, unit changes, and unit design. It's agonizing, because I think SC2 has a huge amount of potential.
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United Kingdom1381 Posts
He definitely deserves it, GameHeart has made an amazing difference to spectating.
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On January 09 2015 10:28 Blargh wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2015 10:09 lestye wrote:On January 09 2015 09:14 Blargh wrote:On January 09 2015 08:49 The_Templar wrote:
Wow, this is really good. Maybe Blizzard will hire new mapmakers next ;D Seriously... Why don't they also hire like, retiring pro-players so that they can actually balance the game? Think how cool it'd be if Idra or Qxc were hired by Blizzard... It sounds nice, but I think Blizzard wants to hire people with actual design and programming skills. I don't think these type of companies have much use for "idea" guys, as ideas can be found everywhere and are usually free. Unless they want to stick them on the QA team, I know a lot of former WoW raiders get hired to do QA for WoW. No... But an ex pro-gamer has infinitely more knowledge about the game than any of their employees (probably combined). Of course, I don't think Blizzard would ever do it, but I think it would help tremendously in making SC2 a real high quality competitive game. I wouldn't think it'd be that necessary if they didn't make the stupidest suggestions and unit additions ever. While I think a couple of the ideas they have are alright, there has never been one where I thought "Wow, that's a really good idea" except for when something was blatantly overpowered/broken. They just have no clue what to do for maps, unit changes, and unit design. It's agonizing, because I think SC2 has a huge amount of potential.
I mean, that's an issue, they have knowledge/insight, but I don't think that's enough to justify a posisition. They actually have to have skills in gamemaking, the job you're describing doesn't exist.
Being an idea guy alone isn't going to get you a job.
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On January 09 2015 10:41 lestye wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2015 10:28 Blargh wrote:On January 09 2015 10:09 lestye wrote:On January 09 2015 09:14 Blargh wrote:On January 09 2015 08:49 The_Templar wrote:
Wow, this is really good. Maybe Blizzard will hire new mapmakers next ;D Seriously... Why don't they also hire like, retiring pro-players so that they can actually balance the game? Think how cool it'd be if Idra or Qxc were hired by Blizzard... It sounds nice, but I think Blizzard wants to hire people with actual design and programming skills. I don't think these type of companies have much use for "idea" guys, as ideas can be found everywhere and are usually free. Unless they want to stick them on the QA team, I know a lot of former WoW raiders get hired to do QA for WoW. No... But an ex pro-gamer has infinitely more knowledge about the game than any of their employees (probably combined). Of course, I don't think Blizzard would ever do it, but I think it would help tremendously in making SC2 a real high quality competitive game. I wouldn't think it'd be that necessary if they didn't make the stupidest suggestions and unit additions ever. While I think a couple of the ideas they have are alright, there has never been one where I thought "Wow, that's a really good idea" except for when something was blatantly overpowered/broken. They just have no clue what to do for maps, unit changes, and unit design. It's agonizing, because I think SC2 has a huge amount of potential. I mean, that's an issue, they have knowledge/insight, but I don't think that's enough to justify a posisition. They actually have to have skills in gamemaking, the job you're describing doesn't exist. Being an idea guy alone isn't going to get you a job.
Being an idea guy means you should be a venture entrepreneur giving jobs to other people or doing something you love instead of a paycheque.
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United States97276 Posts
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On January 09 2015 09:08 SetGuitarsToKill wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2015 09:07 dAPhREAk wrote:
does this mean we now have to hate him since he is part of the oh so evil and greedy Blizzard?!?!? He's officially lazy and doesn't listen to the community, yes.
Wait that effect can take a couple of years to crystallize on good folks.
TBH I'm glad to see ryan get the gig and hope the best for his future endeavors within blizzard.
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Congratulations, glad this worked out so well for you! Your hard work and dedication pay off, you deserve it! <3
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Congrats, Ryan!!
You really deserve it =D
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On January 09 2015 09:14 Blargh wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2015 08:49 The_Templar wrote:
Wow, this is really good. Maybe Blizzard will hire new mapmakers next ;D Seriously... Why don't they also hire like, retiring pro-players so that they can actually balance the game? Think how cool it'd be if Idra or Qxc were hired by Blizzard...
QXC and Idra with all due respect are not the folks who need to do any of the balancing, instead folks like JulyZerg, FirebatHero, Stork, and Bisu folks who have serious gaming prowess along with a name. Now if the plan or idea is to get english speakers into those hopeful positions  maybe someone like mondi or testie would be best for LOTV.
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That's a signing that makes a lot of sense.
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Cool, now please improve the WCS overlay :D
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Congratulations Ryan. I could see from your work on gameheart that you had passion and were a very hard worker with some talent to boot. I can't think of a better reward for your efforts than to get your foot in the door with a major game company like Blizzard.
I'm looking forward to what you can do to make SC2 a great spectator sport. Likely you will be doing work on other Blizzard games too. Once again congrats and good luck.
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On January 09 2015 09:14 Blargh wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2015 08:49 The_Templar wrote:
Wow, this is really good. Maybe Blizzard will hire new mapmakers next ;D Seriously... Why don't they also hire like, retiring pro-players so that they can actually balance the game? Think how cool it'd be if Idra or Qxc were hired by Blizzard...
im a zerg player but if idra were hired to balance the game it would be a fucking broodlord infestor level nightmare for the rest of sc2's lifespan
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On January 09 2015 13:21 brickrd wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2015 09:14 Blargh wrote:On January 09 2015 08:49 The_Templar wrote:
Wow, this is really good. Maybe Blizzard will hire new mapmakers next ;D Seriously... Why don't they also hire like, retiring pro-players so that they can actually balance the game? Think how cool it'd be if Idra or Qxc were hired by Blizzard... im a zerg player but if idra were hired to balance the game it would be a fucking broodlord infestor level nightmare for the rest of sc2's lifespan
I severely doubt that, as I believe Idra never liked Broodlord infestor. I recall him strongly opposing it, actually. He would be way ahead of these Protoss players, but refuse to ever tech up to BL+Infestor composition, and instead just tried winning using roach+hydra against the standard Protoss deathball of zealot+stalker+sentry+colossus+immortal. He lost a lot.
But as a retired player, and as an ex-Terran player (Broodwar), I think he'd actually be a very good person for game balance. Though, he might not have much sympathy for Protoss. I think that's okay, though. Protoss have a lot of the best things, anyway.
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SoCal, USA3955 Posts
About time. <___> Eventhough they were working together, about time Blizzard to him in!
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yay!
just tell blizzard to employ the starbow folks now!
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I love how his name is in quotation marks, like he made it up or it was a nickname.
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On January 09 2015 09:14 Blargh wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2015 08:49 The_Templar wrote:
Wow, this is really good. Maybe Blizzard will hire new mapmakers next ;D Seriously... Why don't they also hire like, retiring pro-players so that they can actually balance the game? Think how cool it'd be if Idra or Qxc were hired by Blizzard...
Because David Kim knows exactly what he is doing. I mean the Bunker didn't need much to get it in line right?
And the Warhound and Shredder turned out really well. And the Swarm Host, the unit that was supposed to allow Zerg to end the game if they were ahead in the mid-game, didn't turn out, as David Kim put it, "boring" like the Siege Tank.
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On January 09 2015 08:43 ZAiNs wrote:
Hopefully he will fix his WCS overlay and make it not totally suck.
I really don't get this opinion. I love the WCS overlay! There are a few places where you could show a bit more information, sure, but overall it's definitely a step up from the Standard and Streamlined overlays and at least is more aesthetically appealing than Gameheart/Gameheart Lite/Whateverthecurrentoneiscalled. Especially those player intro thingies that only WCS NA season 3 finals ever actually used. I think a lot of the complaints about it actually came from the observers not being practiced with it and forgetting to switch back to production tab and stuff.
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Hong Kong9154 Posts
hey awesome
nice working with you in the past, as well.
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Congrats to him! Thats awesome to see that his hard work is translating to such an amazing opportunity
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Vindication for every nerd in the universe who has spent countless hours developing custom mods for Blizzard games. Dream on!
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Is the lost passion immediate, or will it take a couple months?
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On January 09 2015 15:54 UberNuB wrote:
Is the lost passion immediate, or will it take a couple months?
don't worry angry redditors are already at work :D
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This is how real progress is made!
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Congratulations! To all of us, this is very good news for everyone =D
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Finally he won't have to ask for money to fix what Blizzard couldn't... 
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Wow, really cool news! This is a good example of passion and hard work giving you the dream job! Congrats to Ryan, keep it up!
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Please carry the word! Tell them LoTV is shit!!! new units are crap!! they need to redisign everything!!! we need reaver back!!! they should use community maps for season mappools not their horrifying ugly stuff!!!
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I hope he will fix WCS overlay. Its just horrible. Even standard (default) observer overlay is much better than current WCS.
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For what it's worth, on the topic of hiring progamers...
Blizzard essentially did that with World of Warcraft. They hired multiple players from Rob Pardo's EverQuest guild to lead development of WoW, so it's not completely unheard of within the company.
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Wow! Huge props to Ryan. See boys, putting hard work into the community can really pay off for you. Ryan went from designing a fanmade UI addon to actually being on Blizzard payroll... congrats!
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so blizzard is able to make good choices. way to be 
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So we get a good WCS overlay anytime soon?
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Congrats! Awesome to see community members work hard and make it!
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does this mean we get more UIs like the new WCS one?
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Alright! Really interested in how this manifests in Legacy of the Void.
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How this took so long is a mystery....
Good to know they can eventually work out the blindingly obvious.
Congrats Ryan. Fight for us in there, don't let them off easy.
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
I have heard that this person is good at antihack/cheat protection software, that he already programmed some of these? Can anybody confirm or deny this? Because if yes, maybe this is what they want to do witch cheating 
Anyway, even if my gossip is denied, good for him, congratz!
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China6329 Posts
On January 10 2015 02:17 deacon.frost wrote:I have heard that this person is good at antihack/cheat protection software, that he already programmed some of these? Can anybody confirm or deny this? Because if yes, maybe this is what they want to do witch cheating Anyway, even if my gossip is denied, good for him, congratz!
He is known for the GameHeart observer mod and interface and is also a great map maker, at least until now we haven't heard of him doing anything with anti cheat.
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On January 10 2015 02:17 deacon.frost wrote:I have heard that this person is good at antihack/cheat protection software, that he already programmed some of these? Can anybody confirm or deny this? Because if yes, maybe this is what they want to do witch cheating Anyway, even if my gossip is denied, good for him, congratz!
I heard he can bench 900 lbs. and his blood is a cure-all. I also heard he is the successor to Chuck Norris. Apparently, he's going to solo-develop Legacy of the Void while everybody at Blizzard looks on in amazement. He's also a Jedi.
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another great move by a company that makes great moves.
way to go Blizzard.
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On January 10 2015 04:19 dUTtrOACh wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2015 02:17 deacon.frost wrote:I have heard that this person is good at antihack/cheat protection software, that he already programmed some of these? Can anybody confirm or deny this? Because if yes, maybe this is what they want to do witch cheating Anyway, even if my gossip is denied, good for him, congratz! I heard he can bench 900 lbs. and his blood is a cure-all. I also heard he is the successor to Chuck Norris. Apparently, he's going to solo-develop Legacy of the Void while everybody at Blizzard looks on in amazement. He's also a Jedi.
Pretty sure he couldn't do a worse job than Blizzard is doing at the moment, even if he was all by himself and he couldn't code cause his hands were tied and his eyes blindfolded...
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On January 10 2015 04:23 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
another great move by a company that makes great moves.
way to go Blizzard.
Blizzard always makes great moves? I must have missed the memo.
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grats, well deserved
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On January 09 2015 09:02 Shinespark wrote:
I fear his productivity might drop and his talent might disappear now that he's with Blizzard
This was the most non-logic post i ever seen, like blizzard not having talented people?, could not be more far from the truth. One of the most if not THE most talented gamedevelopers out there. Just working at their place/palace makes your entusiasm and creativity go wild.
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On January 09 2015 09:27 zeratul_jf wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2015 09:14 Blargh wrote:On January 09 2015 08:49 The_Templar wrote:
Wow, this is really good. Maybe Blizzard will hire new mapmakers next ;D Seriously... Why don't they also hire like, retiring pro-players so that they can actually balance the game? Think how cool it'd be if Idra or Qxc were hired by Blizzard... While it would be cool, I think the main reason that Blizzard doesn't do this is because of biased a specific player might have to the game, or the changes that they would be allowed to make from their suggestions would be too little to compensate for the position. I think they want people who have real world "experience" in balancing games. Also consider the fact that they would have to pay Idra or Qxc when they have mentioned several times that blizzard reaches out to pro players for feedback as well as suggestions, so why make a paid position when you could have the opinion of current progamers for free.
That's a terrible argument. With that logic, we could say that Blizzard shouldn't be making any changes to the game because of their bias due to the fact that they created it. Or that they're a business using esports as a way to make money which is pretty much the truth.
"Real world" experience in balancing a video game is non-existent. No one has actually sat down and attempted to balance a game for competition. Blizzard assuming they know better than pro players is no different than pro players assuming they know more than Blizzard.
Not only that, but if Idra or QXC were to become balance designers, do you think they would actually allow them to make a specific race more powerful? I understand these guys played SC2 as a profession, but they're just people. They're not actually connected to the races they play aside from the fact that they played those races. They do not speak for the races in the game themselves, and I assure you, when it comes down it, they really don't give a fuck if Zerg is not "zergy" enough (whatever that means...).
./endrant
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On January 11 2015 02:57 MidnightZL wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2015 09:02 Shinespark wrote:
I fear his productivity might drop and his talent might disappear now that he's with Blizzard This was the most non-logic post i ever seen, like blizzard not having talented people?, could not be more far from the truth. One of the most if not THE most talented gamedevelopers out there. Just working at their place/palace makes your entusiasm and creativity go wild.
Having an extravagant corporate headquarters != talent, unless you're talking about the interior designer they hired.
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Thanks Ryan and congrats. Very well deserved.
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Congratulations. I sure hope he does better work there than with his last Gameheart though...
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Not to take anything away from him, but he didn't solo-develop everything in Gameheart. There are things he worked with others to get into GH, but that also means he already has those contacts and hopefully Blizz will let him bring on board in some form those people as well.
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thats awesome!
congratulations
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If he stays. Gratz ofc.
For me this smells like a cheap PR Deal to get all eSports fans hyped. And its a really cheap deal for them
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EPT
