With the expansion days away, the recent changes to the game causing many to return and love what has happened the question must be asked.
What is Jay Wilson's legacy after all this?
Was his vision inherently flawed?
Was he nothing more than a scapegoat doing the bidding of those who gave him orders?
Or was he just an arrogant person who couldn't see beyond his own view countering with "fuck that loser" when others said they would not do what he did.
It's hard to say, I think. I mean, the sentiment I had on release was that they were really onto something with D3, that the core game feel was excellent and everything
felt right. The skills felt powerful. The runes make everything look different. The art style, which everyone ridiculed, was beautiful and felt like moving through a painting.
The shame came from philosophies that came from a lot of their design decisions (which were ultimately reactions of a 10+ yr old D2 fanbase).
- I hate tradespam and dealing with shady dealers.
- Why can't we enjoy the game for all the environments there are? Endgame is just Baal runs.
- Skill points are broken. You put just one point wrong on that tree and you may as well start over.
- What's the point of stat points, anyway? Everyone's just going to throw everything in Vit anyway.
- Once you hit the higher levels, the game is just trivial. Nothing can kill you once you hit level 75 or so, not even hell Baal. Why bother with a level 99 cap?
It's unfortunate that in responding to these (perfectly legitimate) complaints, they ended up catering too far to the extreme, and while somethings worked, others didn't. We got the AH, and the RMAH. Skill/Stat points disappeared in favor of Runes. Blue and Yellow mobs were tougher than bosses, making the boss fights trivial and anticlimactic. Inferno was overtuned to such a degree that many players simply burned out in Act 2, never to play again. These are problems that came from the solutions they chose, which I think is the best answer to your question of if JayW's vision was flawed. I don't think the vision was flawed, but I think the solutions they chose created problems they didn't forsee.
As far as his facebook shit...I mean, damn son. It certainly was a spectacular way to destroy any online credibility he had. We've all said shit we aren't proud of, and most of us have said it on the internet, but chances are pretty good what you've said online won't follow you around for the rest of your professional career. I don't see him as arrogant, really. I see him as someone who's defensive about a game and a team he poured years of work into, with some really shitty choices about what you post online. Personally, I never post anything about work, but I'm not in that public sphere, either.
And a scapegoat? Well, I don't think he was. I think he made all the decisions with the help of his team, pitched them to his bosses, and got the thumbs up. Then, once everything went downhill, I think everyone at blizz knew there were some things they would be able to backtrack on, and some things they wouldn't. I think the difference was that Jay likely never pushed for AH to leave, where Josh probably did. This is all speculation on my part, but I mean this is just a discussion, so if anyone has any real evidence about any of this, please correct me.
