World of Warcraft’s dev-head Kalgan (Tom Chilton to his mom) is taking a beating today across the forums. He’s no stranger to hate, particularly on the priest forums, but the accusations are flying today in light of the updated Patch 2.4 notes. (Here’s the WoWWiki page — and more links! — with the history of the forum term “Kalganism”. Definition, briefly: to be nerfed in order to favor Kalgan’s latest PVP character, usually his warrior.)
Nevermind that I know about 234,509 warriors who would disagree that other classes have been nerfed to favor their PVP performance, what’s relevant to this discussion is today’s hate.
Some additional class changes for Patch 2.4 were announced today, principally nerfing to elemental shaman. And priests. (And rogues? Whew, the rogue beating doesn’t appear fatal. Again! HA HA HA!)
Now here’s the big accusation: Must Read If You Care About Anything .. Ever. And I fully expect that thread to die a mysterious death, but I’m prepared this time! (Thread died while I was typing. What a shock. Links to the screenshots are at the end.)
Anyways, posting alt Jayne of the Akama realm wrote:
This isn’t a troll, and is entirely true.
1) There is a non-blue player named “Leiah” who regularly posts on the warlock forms about upcoming patch changes, sometimes as much as months in advance.
2) Leiah was formerly an arena partner with Kalgan’s (the developer) warrior, as well as a member of the same guild. He has acknowledged this in the past, and it is generally well-known.
3) Leiah has claimed to have influenced design decisions as a result of his banter and feedback with the developer — most notably he suggested in mid-January that elemental shamans had too much burst damage, and that, as Leiah put it, “Kalgan sees it my way”, and that a mechanic change was upcomming.
4) Leiah is now bragging on the warlock forums about how the changes he demanded have been implemented on the PTR — and he is entirely correct. The suggestions he made were implemented almost exactly the way he said that he wanted them done over a month ago. This was long before leaked patch notes or any sort of official Blizzard communication.
This is not a blizzard developer making decisions based on hard knowledge or numbers. This is just a friend of a developer who has an inside ear, and is producing results based solely on his limited player experiences.
What is upsetting is that he is allowed to then disseminate this information on the forums as childish bragging and gloating. The shaman community learned about their major 2.4 nerfs from some random guy telling them to “QQ” on the warlock forums… only to have it proven totally true a month later.
So the next time you are wondering if Blizzard really hates your class, or just who in the hell is calling the shots, look no further than some chums of the developers who got bested by your class/spec a few times and complained about it.
Then fanbois and haters alike climb aboard for the flame train and we’re off!
Normally, I’d also dismiss this as fantasy, but I’m gonna guess what’s really going on here is some nobody (Leiah in our example) thinks he’s/she’s somebody when he/she posts about the casual conversations he/she has had with the Kalganator while doing arenas. Obviously, this is a big no-no to players and SHOULD BE to the gaming companies, and probably is to most, but there is a history around here of employees getting (too?) cozy with their guilds and their gaming mates.
However. It could be as simple as how my arenas and battlegrounds go.
Me: I really hate blood elf paladins.
Partner: Ya, me too. Blood elf anything.
Me: You’re not hearing me. I REALLY fucking hate blood elf paladins. I want them DEAD! I want their families DEAD! I want their houses burned to the ground!
And if I was a dev-head, and my partner was an IDIOT and posted that BELF paladins were about to take it in the rear, then tada! BELF paladins take it in the rear, that would look pretty bad. Y’see that’s the thing with non-disclosure type jobs: you have to keep your hands clean, and your hands have to look clean too.
That’s why I wonder … why has this boasting and nerf-threatening been going on for months? Allegedly.
And I wonder this too: why in God’s name would a higher-level dev name his game character the same as his forum persona? Please tell me they don’t because that’s stupid.
I don’t know Kalgan and his posts well enough to hate him like some of the WoW players, but I tell you this … if he’s in charge of bag space, he’s on my list. The same list as BELF paladins.