Alan Dabiri vient d’annoncer son départ en tant que de directeur de jeu de Heroes of the Storm, pour un nouveau poste au sein de Blizzard. C’est une demi-surprise car il s’était mis en retrait déjà avant l’annonce d’Yrel. Son message n’indique pas clairement quel sera le prochain directeur de jeu, mais il mentionne à plusieurs reprises le directeur de la production, Kaéo Milker que vous avez déjà certainement vu, entre autres pour les annonces des nouveaux héros à la BlizzCon. Mais il se pourrait aussi que cela devienne Travis McGeathy le lead designer et ingénieur principal du jeu.
Le style très discret d’Alan Dabiri détonnait grandement de celui du bouillonant Dustin Browder, en particulier sur la communication. Néanmoins il a accompli un très beau travail de fond auquel nous espérons que les joueurs de Heroes lui rendront justice.
Sous son ère on aura vu notamment Heroes 2.0 avec les lootbox, de sorties régulières de héros d’excellente qualité, des nouveaux champs de bataille, les sorties thématiques pour les modèles, de très nombreuses refontes y compris des champs de bataille, les 3e bans, le MMR decay, des améliorations notables sur les parties classées et matchmaking, et un bon support du jeu sur la scène pro.
Pour l’aspect moins glorieux on se souviendra en particulier du début cacophonique de la saison 1 de 2018 qui restera dans les mémoires, le retrait du PBM (Performance Based Matchmaking) toujours attendu, et plus globalement le sentiment que le matchmaking et les parties classées sont encore à améliorer.
Pour notre part nous tirons notre chapeau à Alan, nous le remercions pour le travail accompli avec passion et lui souhaitons bonne chance pour ses nouveaux projets qui espérons-le seront liés à Heroes d’une manière ou d’une autre.
De votre côté qu’en retiendrez-vous ? Qu’attendez-vous de la part du nouveau directeur de jeu ?
Voici le message d’Alan en anglais:
A message from Alan Dabiri [Forum]
In my 20-plus years at Blizzard, I’ve had the privilege of working on many awesome Blizzard games in roles ranging from software engineer to technical director to game director. Across my many roles and games, my experience working on Heroes of the Storm ranks among the best of my development career. I’ve witnessed Heroes’ evolution from a StarCraft II mod to the amazing game you see today. Heroes’ development has been fueled by the shared excitement of our team and all of you in the community, and the game we’ve built together is the game I play almost every night.
One of the best things about developing Heroes is the fact that this team is not afraid to try new things while always striving to learn and grow. It’s been part of our DNA from the very beginning, and it’s through years of experimentation that we’ve hit our stride both as a development team, and as a game. This is possible because Heroes has an exceptional development team of both Blizzard veterans and fresh faces who are all highly engaged with the game we’re making, and the players we’re making it for.
It’s in this spirit of trying new things that I want to let everyone know that a few months ago, I accepted an opportunity to transition off my role as Heroes’ game director to heed Blizzard’s call and begin a new adventure elsewhere within the company. The game director has always been one part of the overall leadership team that drives Heroes forward and it’s been a privilege to work among some of the best game developers at every level on the team all the way up to our production director, Kaéo Milker. Leaving a team and game that I love is incredibly difficult, but seeing the steady strength, creativity, and commitment that Kaéo and the design, engineering, and art leadership teams consistently bring to Heroes has given me more than enough confidence to make this decision. I trust that the game is in the very best hands and their work these past few months has only reinforced my belief.
They’ve released awesome new heroes like Yrel, Whitemane, Mephisto, and now Mal’Ganis, while building on the themed content drops that let the team do fun things that only Heroes can do. They brought the smackdown (plus my favorite mount, the Luchihuahua!) with Nexomania, finally brought an epic slice of Azeroth into the Nexus with the Alterac Pass Battleground, and joined the Raven Lord’s forces with the Fall of King’s Crest. On top of that, the team has also released awesome reworks like Raynor and Brightwing while adding exciting updates like third ban and Team League improvements. With so many awesome content and feature updates, you can see why I believe that the team has brought us the best year of Heroes of the Storm so far.
And they’re not done yet. Heroes has one of the most passionate and dedicated development teams I’ve had the pleasure of working with, and they have a ton of exciting new content in development. I can’t wait for you all to see what they have in store for the rest of this year and beyond. You can bet that I’ll be right there enjoying it with you as it’s released, too. I’m sure you’ll agree when I say that Heroes is in a great place and I promise that it’s in the hands of the best possible people to continue driving it forward. Kaéo and the Heroes team are people who play almost every night who also happen to get to work on making the game what it is today. With our continued input and support, they’ll keep doing what they do best by making Heroes of the Storm the most awesome game it can possibly be.
I just want to sign off by saying thank you to all of you. I’ve had an incredible time working on this game and seeing you bring the battlegrounds to life every day. I’m so grateful for the enthusiasm you’ve brought to Heroes and all the changes you’ve encouraged us to make. I know the team deeply appreciates the feedback you share, so please keep it coming—and as always, I’ll see you in the Nexus!
-Alan
Deutsch
Español
Italiano
Português do Brasil