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Jay Wilson posted his goodbye message to the Diablo III community last week as he stepped down from the role of game director. After Wilson’s post, a number of responses emerged from the community, not all friendly well wishes and goodbyes. Many of the responses were scathing and criticized Wilson’s work and direction for Dibalo III. So much so, that after more than 100 pages into the thread, Blizzard COO Rob Pardo felt the need to step in and defend Jay Wilson’s work as a developer and on Diablo III.

This thread saddens me greatly. I know that the Battle.net forums have earned a reputation for rough justice, but I do not believe justice is being served by how people are speaking about Jay’s departure from Diablo III.

I am very proud of the Diablo franchise and what the team was able to accomplish with Diablo III. As a gamer I have enjoyed the game and played for many, many nights with friends and family. I’m not, however, going to use that as an excuse. The Diablo community deserves an even better game from Blizzard and we are committed to improving it. We have a talented team in place and have no intention of stopping work on Diablo III until it is the best game in the franchise.

Pardo went on to compliment Wilson on his work and take responsibility for the game in the state that it was released. He also guaranteed that players will “enjoy Jay’s game designs in future Blizzard games.”

I’m the only person in this thread who has actually worked with Jay. I hired Jay to head up the Diablo project and had the pleasure of getting to work with him, both in building the team and designing the game. He has great design instincts and has added so much to the franchise with his feel for visceral combat, boss battles, and an unparalleled knack for making it fun to smash bad guys. I’ve worked with many, many designers at Blizzard and Jay is one of the best. He has a great career at Blizzard ahead of him and I guarantee that you will enjoy Jay’s game designs in future Blizzard games.

If you love Diablo as much as we do, then please continue to let us know how you feel we can improve the game. If you still feel the need to dish out blame, then I would prefer you direct it at me. I was the executive producer on the project; I hired Jay and I gave him advice and direction throughout the development process. I was ultimately responsible for the game we released and take full responsibility for the quality of the result.

The thread now has extended to more than 188 pages as of this writing. There are some good suggestions for improvements by players, but you'll have to search through a lot of flames to find them.

Source: Diablo III Forums