I learned last week that former Blizzard developer Travis Day passed away at the age of 41. You may have already seen the information but being on vacation, I did not have time to talk about it on JudgeHype. However, I find that the gentleman deserves a small tribute, in particular because of his rather atypical career.
Travis Day made himself known to Blizzard during the World of Warcraft beta. Fan of theorycrafting, he goes against most players of the time who felt that the Warrior was clearly too weak. For Travis, known as Indalamar, the Warrior was on the contrary overpowered and required nerves.
In order to convince the community, but also Blizzard, Travis uploads a video that you can find below and which is part of the history of WoW. We see the Indalamar Warrior chaining kills with critical hits and a constantly improved 35% haste.
Seeing this, the developers set about modifying the Warrior and several skills were reviewed in depth. How did Blizzard thank Travis Day? By engaging it.
Travis started his career at Blizzard in the Customer Support department. He then became an analyst on the Quality Assurance side before being propelled Game Designer in the World of Warcraft team.
In the following years, we find Travis Day on Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls. He has shared a lot of information about the game’s itemization on the official forums. I myself had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing him as part of the Necromancer Summit. I keep the memory of a passionate developer capable of detailing the operation of the game in the smallest details.
Blizzard has not forgotten the character of Indalamar, far from it. It is also to him that the Gift of Ramaladni on Diablo 3 refers. He is also entitled to an object on WoW, the Ramaladni Purification Blade ax, as well as the Indalamar card in the defunct TCG WoW .
After 13 years of loyal service, Travis left Blizzard in July 2018 to join Phoenix Labs, before moving to Tencent America last year.
On August 11, his sister Rachel Day, developer at Bonfire Studios, announces the death of Travis. The reasons for his death have not been made public. Finally, know that we are dealing with a real family of developers since his brother, Morgan Day, currently holds the position of Associate Game Director on WoW.
