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Jay Wilson

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Tolnub
#0 - Nov. 16, 2010, 2:23 a.m.
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How much say in the design of the game does he have exactly? How many employees would dare to oppose an idea that he likes?

Just throwing out some questions because of what happened with George Lucas and the newest Star Wars movies (episodes 1-3). He had pretty much complete say in what happened, and nobody had the courage to oppose him, hence the blockbuster flop of the century. Of course, the movies made money solely on the popularity of the previous films.

Let's hope this is not the case with Diablo 3. Just seems to be going in the same "zomg special effects" direction.
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Bashiok
#5 - Nov. 16, 2010, 3:17 a.m.
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Well, I can't speak on the creative process of those movies, which I believe to be grossly exaggerated if not made up.

But, Jay Wilson is extremely nice, and probably one of the easiest guys to work with. I'll go to him to ask about design on something that you guys are currently debating and he'll very purposefully up-front ask what specific pros, cons, and issues are being raised. Now, sometimes those are used as ammunition as to why you're wrong ;) but at the core it's a fundamental openness to ideas and discussion that build our games. We simply don't design our games in an ivory tower. We can't, they wouldn't be Blizzard games if they were. It takes a village to raise a game about demons. Now that can be argued in some cases as people see certain decisions or changes as purposefully intended to hurt them and their game experience, but that's obviously never true. The truth is that sometimes hard decisions have to be made, and the intent is always for the betterment of the game.

I'm getting off topic. Anyway, we have a lot of designers on the team and they aren't even necessarily relegated to the design team. Sometimes an artist or programmer or producer will have a good idea or solution. If it's the best, then it works and goes in the game. I don't know that a quality game could be released under different conditions.