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Comment by jimbob45 | Hacker News Reader

It's not just that the old guard are gone, it's that they've been gone for a very long time. Here's a chart from 2011 showing where everyone went.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HZGjc0LkXXw/UYwB9YaXFRI/AAAAAAAAA...

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Guild Wars is the only game made by an "ex-Blizzard" staffed studio that I feel has had any significant amount of success. Just goes to show how much these things are collaborative efforts that rely on a particular environment to come together.

Not quite the same as an entirely ex-Blizzard staffed group of people, but Riot Games and League of Legends as well. Tom Cadwell[0] was there from the very beginning of League's life and has had considerable influence over the development and growth of the game. Before that, he was on Warcraft 3's development team and supposedly (supposedly because I can't remember despite being on the War3 forums, and can't find evidence of it) had a hand in developing its fairly successful esports scene. And before that, he was actually one of the first Starcraft pro gamers in the late 90's, just before the explosion of esports in South Korea.

He's kind of a one-man army, but his influence definitely has shaped the more popular games and industry landscape today.

[0]: https://www.riotgames.com/en/who-we-are/riot-games-leadershi...

GW was very much a result of the founders attempting to recreate all the good things (at least in their opinion) about Blizzard's work environment without carrying over the bad things. They put a lot of thought into things like code ownership policies, schedules and even office floor plans.

Guild Wars was great, arguably better than the sequel. I'm glad the servers are still up.

I still feel disappointed about GW2. GW1 had the most ambitious and innovative and interesting class build system we'd seen 'til then and arguably ever since. It was crazy what was possible. Also still the best structured PvP we've ever gotten in an MMO.

You aren't kidding. I loved GW1 and theory-crafting new builds. I had a tremendous time doing competitive Guild-vs-Guild at a high rank, random arenas, and Heroes Ascent. I remember grinding an obscene amount for prestige titles, and I found the rarest item in the game which I still remember selling for 900 ectos (it was the only sword with a different damage type, useful for min-maxing against an opposing monk, and the only place it could drop in the game with perfect stats was as a reward in Heroes Ascent).

GW2 was easily my personal biggest let-down in gaming of all time. They eliminated GW1's namesake PVP mode and the entirety of its super-deep build and combat system.

I think their main goal in GW2 was to build a "true" MMO instead of GW1's instanced gameplay. I think GW1's build system just wouldn't work very well with that design. It would be difficult to balance world content for groups ranging from 1 to 8 people - many GW1 classes would also have a hard time soloing without picking very specific secondary classes and builds.

So I can see why they went down the route they did. I agree it's a bit of a shame though. Would kill for a GW1 re-release with some updated graphics and QoL improvements.

It feels like another MMO following the WoW bandwagon. GW1 was so unique and I feel fills a niche that would still be relevant today if it had active support with new expansions and regular updates.

Maybe it made sense for them in order to reach a bigger audience and maybe it paid off for them. I just wish they hadn't gone the "true MMO" route.

Obsidian and Fallout: New Vegas don't rate for you?

Marvel Snap is doing pretty well lately.

That chart must be from before 2011 because the wikipedia entry for Flagship Studios (the single largest receiver of Blizzard talent in the chart) says it went belly up in 2008.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagship_Studios

There's lines leading out from Flagship Studios to where people went next. Sims 3 didn't come out until 2009 so it's post Flagship Studios.

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