A Tigole flashback to Legacy of Steel
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 15th 2007 at 4:26PM
Reader Dbandith sent us this little gem-- it's Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan's old EQ guild page from back in 2002. Back before Blizzard really got started with World of Warcraft, they raided (pun intended) the biggest guilds in a few other MMOs, most notably EverQuest, for developers, and some of those folks became the Blues that we know and love today. I know both Tigole and Alex "Furor" Afrasiabi came from EQ guilds (and in fact, their old guilds still play WoW, and it's gotten them in trouble at least once), and Rob Pardo originally ran Legacy of Steel, the guild that Tigole came from.But this little flashback is extremely interesting, not only for the post at the top of the page-- it's very cool to see a fresh-faced Tigole, one excited about breaking the MMO mold and not a guy concerned with balancing Arena Ratings and an expansion beta schedule-- but also for the expletive-filled post at the bottom. "Fix your goddamn buggy bull**** half-assed encounters," rages Tigole at the EQ staff. And he sounds just like the same folks raging on the forums about Blizzard's current problems, even if their language isn't quite as strong as his.
Now don't get me wrong-- Kaplan and Blizzard have done an amazing job, and created one of the best games in history. Fighting over Brewfest bugs (or even one tree of one class in the game) is 1000% better than fighting over the entire act of playing the game itself-- there's no question in my mind that Kaplan and all of the other raiders brought on board at Blizzard pushed the MMO genre light years ahead of where it was back in their raiding time. But it is an interesting sight to see Blizzard devs on the other side of the message board posting button, raging against mistakes in implementation just as so many on Blizzard's forums are today.
Thanks, Dbandith!
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Guilds, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Instances, Leveling
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Michel Oct 15th 2007 4:39PM
it means one day, ex-wow players will on board to a newer, greater mmo having learned everything of wow and others game before to do a better, less mistakes from start and so on
and one day...
stapleboy Oct 15th 2007 4:55PM
When you think about it, it's pretty amazing the progress PvP has made in this game since launch. Kaplan and Pardo are key reasons PvP will always be secondary in WoW - if you love raiding, WoW is the place to be and offers a lot of fun diversions on the side. If you don't love raiding, you're a second class subscriber who can hope for "welfare epics" at best as far as some of the leading devs are concerned...
cearrdorn Oct 15th 2007 4:55PM
I wonder if he's attempted Prince lately... hmm.
A Badeaux Oct 15th 2007 6:52PM
Hear, hear! (Or is it Here, here?) Anyway, at the risk of oversimplifying the many tremendous accomplishments that WoW represents, I have often described WoW as "EverQuest with the 17 most annoying problems fixed". I do this merely to get others to try the game, and it sometimes works.
Dyermaker Oct 15th 2007 4:57PM
While you're at it, why not post a link to the anti-semetic remarks from Tigole in his Curse interview about Death Knights?
Tigole is a boil on the face of Blizzard. The sooner they realize it, the sooner they remove him, the better for the game and its players.
Dyermaker Oct 15th 2007 5:01PM
And another thing... for those of you who did not know him from EQ, characters had surnames. Tigole Bitties was the full name. Another shining example of maturity and proper judgement he's brought with him to World of Warcraft.
pokute Oct 15th 2007 5:06PM
@5 is that for real? i always wondered about his name...
Dyermaker Oct 15th 2007 5:17PM
I do not think I can post links, however, if you do a simple google search using the phrase "tigole-on-hybrids" you will find proof of Tigole Bitties and other wonderful items that might make you re-think the problems Paladins have been having.
Snailking Oct 15th 2007 5:20PM
@6 Ya that really was his character's name. I played EQ on the same server as Tigole and LoS guild. I'd read his web site regularly, and my favorite part was the screens of him giving the banker the mad phat loot that 99% of the players would kill for.
Banker Norman thanks you for Crimson Dagger of Unholy Death.
Chadwick Oct 15th 2007 5:21PM
"Rethink your time-sink bull****."
The irony tastes so good.
Arnold Oct 15th 2007 5:53PM
Hmm, seeing this does explain why it truly is World of Raidcraft....
Don't get me wrong, I love WoW (or should that be WoR? [j/k]), and I'm not trying to start the whole raiders vs. nonraiders discussion here, but there does indeed appear to be a large and prevalent raid-bias. Finding out that the lead developers came from large raiding guilds from other games explains things a bit.
Ferocious Oct 15th 2007 7:22PM
I hate him....
Him and all the others from EQ that everyday make WOW feel more like EQ3.
Hes also responsible for all the problems hybrids face,and why they arent fixed.
He was a clear Classist back tehre and still remains that way.
Wow will only improve if tigole and foror leave.
Want a good new game? carabine seems like it,the REAL wow devs plus fallout talent and others there.will be amazing.
James Oct 15th 2007 6:06PM
"Now don't get me wrong-- Kaplan and Blizzard have done an amazing job"
What has Kaplan done? The guy opens his mouth and stupid pours out. He probably sits in an office, kisses ass and takes credit for other peoples work.
Fletch Oct 15th 2007 6:17PM
Ahh, my favorite subject: how completely unqualified Jeff Kaplan is. It's what got me banned from the official forums.
twh Oct 15th 2007 6:41PM
#7
Though I find the whole conspiracy theory thing to be dubious at best, it would not surprise me at all to see him part of the reason why the paladin class has the problems it has.
Don't forget to tell us the part of the server crashes he held in protesting of EQ paladins being able to tank like warriors from that game.
RogueJedi86 Oct 15th 2007 6:51PM
It happens everywhere. In the Star Wars Galaxies beta, Thunderheart was a big forum poster, always calling out the BS of the developers, complaining about all the broke stuff, and issues that needed addressed. Then short after launch, they hired him, made him a Developer(Community Manager guy, interface between the developers and the players. The second that happened, all his initiative went away, and he was ecstatic and pleased with all the game changes, even the terrible ones that later got changed(he would also call the reverting back to before the changes very great too). I guess that's the price to pay for having your paychecks signed by the kind of people you couldn't put up with. You gotta agree with what the developers do with the game, or you'll get fired.
That's why I'm not a big fan of Public Relation BS talk(like when they release press releases, or put out press interviews, giving vague responses that don't actually answer the questions).
Ben Oct 15th 2007 10:57PM
Most of the EQ imports were *after* the majority of the design work was finished. Shortly before launch there was a developer exodus, much to the dismay of the beta community. The majority of the dev and design team currently in place were not responsible for the original development and design of WoW, but were either diamonds in the rough or hasty replacements, depending on how you look at it. The posting history of some of these (Tigole being only one of the EQ imports) has some eery overlap with the shifts in design direction. Anyone remember when the hybrid classes were NOT the red-headed stepchildren?
The current design team deserves props for their accomplishments, but we must make it VERY clear that World of Warcraft is a game they PATCHED, not a game they made.
I'm going to be following the news from Carbine very closely.
Nak Oct 16th 2007 1:23AM
The lack of insight and perspective here is piled deep enough to bury the earth to the depth of a mile.
If you didn't play EQ - you don't get it. Period.
If you think that WOW is World of Raids - you're basically clueless - in EQ, the raid content was even ACCESSIBLE to less than 2% of the game - forget WoW's little league 'everyone plays' rules - these guys changed the paradigm. You giving them a ration over it is pathetic and reprehensible. They put their money where their mouth is - by making the raid content POSSIBLE for anyone who plays and levels up. You don't have to worry about cock-blocking of uberguilds and spawn-domination.
And if you think WoW has timesinks - then you sir, are a whiner. You make Luke Skywalker look like Siddhartha. Ok, WoW has a few multi-hour timesinks. Rep farms that take 30 mins a day for a month - so what? There are big rewards along the way. Everquest back then had quests that required at-the-keyboard timesinks that required SCORES of hours in a row. That's right - to get the equivalent of a CoT exalted dagger - you had to sit in one spot putting down hundreds of basically lootless monsters to get ONE STEP done in a quest.
Clue in - Tigole's presence advanced pretty much every MMO that followed. Who cares if his name was a banal joke made by a 20 yr old guy? How much have you changed in 10 years?
hjungle Oct 17th 2007 7:59AM
You can’t be so naïve to think Kaplan alone rescued World of Warcraft from becoming a boring pile of MMORPG similar to Everquest, that he alone had the single perspective that there were problems with Everquest’s game play.
The problem with Kaplan personally is that 10 years later he’s still that 20-year old, only now with a much lager ego. Setting aside his poor public relations, he’s also not that great of a designer. It’s nice to think that perhaps he’s getting better and that Ahn’Qiraj was simply a learning experience but with a couple of loose exceptions we’re still jumping into the same old dungeons fighting the same bosses with the same old tactics. The raiding game features tougher strategy but it still follows a fairly strict “this is how to beat the boss, you must do it this way” philosophy.
Of course, Kaplan is not alone in this as he simply makes an easy target for the fanatical to rage upon but to praise the man for making sure WoW didn’t turn into Everquest is like praising Kelloggs for not making Froot Loops taste like rocks and tree bark.