Jay Wilson has left the Diablo III project

[Dacar92]

I'll bet he was asked to step down from his post. I think Blizzard know D3 did not receive the reception they were hoping it would receive. They would have to be tone deaf to not know. So Jay, being the project leader was asked to move on to another project. No doubt he still holds a "high" position within Blizzard.

Now, people will say that he was successful because D3 sold so many copies so quickly. But I believe it sold that many copies due to the Diablo and Blizzard names, not because it was such a great game. Time will tell. I am a bit sad he had to leave his post and I hope he can be successful elsewhere, on his next project. One can get burned out too, so if he has been living and breathing Diablo for 7 years it was probably time anyway. On the other hand, I am excited for the future. New blood may be just what we need.

[Kiroptus]

Yeah you are right. But D3's drama has gone over the internet, the Facebook quote drama, the PvP delays, the overall bad reception and now Jay's departure. If anything it just shows that D3's development is just too troublesome, so yes, this news might have affected some few stragglers on the forums but overall most people have already moved on.

[Sass]

Pretty sure he's just moving to Titan. He's a developer, and D3's already been developed. They have their goals for the expansions already in place, and they can work on that. Any replacement of his would just be personnel management.

[TheDestructor]

Pretty sure he's just moving to Titan. He's a developer, and D3's already been developed. They have their goals for the expansions already in place, and they can work on that. Any replacement of his would just be personnel management.

I agree with this. Any D2 fans still dreaming about major skill system overhauls, stat points, completely redone itemization, better to just move on, because I don't think a new director is going to touch any of that. Jay has essentially set the foundation, a new director will just be doing house cleaning along with adding new stuff to do.

[themeros]

As a software developer, I tend to agree that even though it feels like this could bring a breath of fresh air, once a software ships, you can NEVER dream of overhauling the system. The departure creates hope, but in reality, not much can be changed, just added (expansions) and not enough to make the game even. The core architecture of the system is set and cannot be redesigned. Only a new version from scratch could do that.

Still, I am happy and unfortunatelly, my irrational hope for the game grows :|

[TheDestructor]

Brother Laz. Diablo 3. Director.

(Sorry, PoE, this is important!)

Can someone (Flux, Dacar92?) get in touch with him if only to ask him to go for it so we can hear his absolute and surely amusing refusal.

[konfeta]

Any D2 fans still dreaming about major skill system overhauls, stat points, completely redone itemization, better to just move on, because I don't think a new director is going to touch any of that.

Eh? Didn't WoW got most of such overhauls in its expansions despite the original game directors leaving?

Hell, most of those things got major changes very late into the game development (within year of release, even). They are hardly immutable Diablo 3 design pillars.

[Bad Ash]

Sorry I am not sorry. Dude made enough PR mistakes to deserve it. Between **** that loser, the launch, him "deleting his twitter" cause of rage, among others, good riddance.

[kestegs]

I never hated the man or anything, but I think it's a good move to finally get rid of him.

[Penncrow]

We have to realize that Blizz is a company that ultimately operates like a business. Those of you who works in the real world understands this, those that do not, here is the low down.

When you run a project, the project manager is in charge of everything, from planning, staffing, budgeting and anything else that goes with the project. The skillset of a PM is his management and organizational skills. In Jay's case, he is probably really good at churning out gaming project and cracking the whip so to speak. But this does not mean he knows more about diablo/design/coding/pr than anyone else (in fact I bet he does not).

So when the project goes south, the PM is the person that gets the blame. I really think that blizz wants D3 to be good and with Jay working on the project for so long, they wanted someone with a fresh new perspective.

This has little to do with the actual content of Diablo3, it is all business.