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Ask Blizzard Employees About Things That Matter
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Oct 06, 2008 02:44 PM
from the opportune-moment dept.
from the opportune-moment dept.
In just a few days, some of us will be making the trek to this year's Blizzcon event in Anaheim, CA. In addition to the interesting announcements, sneak peeks, and other distractions, we will be sitting down with several Blizzard employees to answer any questions you might have. So far we have scheduled some time with Chris Sigaty, lead producer on StarCraft II; Jeffrey Kaplan (aka Tigole), game director for World of Warcraft; Leonard Boyarsky, lead world designer on Diablo III; and Paul Sams, Blizzard COO. Please address your questions to one (or several) of these candidates and try to keep them civil and on topic. Questions about Diablo III's art style will most likely be omitted since we have limited time and that dead horse has already been beaten into submission. The usual Slashdot interview rules apply, but beyond that, the sky is the limit.
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Last week we asked you to submit questions for several Blizzard employees on a wide range of issues. Since we undertook the pilgrimage to Blizzcon in person this year, we decided to use the question ideas as a guide rather than an absolute, so that it could be a little more conversational in tone. Below we have included the responses from Chris Sigaty, lead producer on StarCraft II; Jeffrey Kaplan (aka Tigole), game director for World of Warcraft; Leonard Boyarsky, lead world designer on Diablo III; and Paul Sams, Blizzard's COO. One interesting point: Paul Sams indicated in his interview that, with enough interest, Blizzard would be willing to entertain the idea of open sourcing some of their older games. He suggested that if you are interested in this to contact them directly (please be at least semi-coherent and polite). Update 19:00 by SM: Bob Colayco from Blizzard just contacted us to mention that if users wish to leave feedback about open sourcing games, support for Linux, or anything else you would like to express to them, you should do so in the comments section of this story. They plan on perusing the comments below for user feedback and interest, so don't be shy.
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Classes, Races & Professions (Score:5, Interesting)
To Chris Sigaty, lead producer on StarCraft II: How do you balance races, units, health, damage, effects, et cetera?
Re:Classes, Races & Professions (Score:5, Informative)
This question has pretty much been answered publicly already. To quote one of the developers [worldofwarcraft.com]:
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Re:Classes, Races & Professions (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Classes, Races & Professions (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Classes, Races & Professions (Score:4, Funny)
Whatever happened to Captain Placeholder? I loved that guy!
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Re:Classes, Races & Professions (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you have any plans to address imbalances in racial abilities? As an example, a Night Elf's 1% to dodge and "little extra" nature resistance is nowhere near as valuable as the Human racials. The Troll and Orc racials are also far more valuable as a whole, to most classes, then any others.
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Re:Classes, Races & Professions (Score:5, Informative)
This is extremely relative. I was planning on answer the OP, but this one opens a nicer avenue.
I was in change of balancing classes/races for about a year on another game. There are so many factor to take into account I never want to do that kind of thing again. But just a rough sketch:
- Across the board balance issues: This are easier to detect, and spreadsheets are great for it
- Situational balance issues: And WoW example would be horde classes on PvP
- Perception balance issues: This are balance issues that players think exist, but don't. Usually they think of it as unfair or unbalanced by analyzing isolated facts, like your example. The 1% extra dodge for night elves is EXTREMELY beneficial if you are a raiding bear tank. You have no idea how much difference that 1% can make.
As a player and former developer (again, from another game), I think Blizzard does the only thing that can be done: keep the imbalances balanced. Meaning: give each race, class etc something they excel at. Some are better for pvp, some are better for PvE, some for gold farming and gathering professions. After leveling my 4rd character, I have to say that all classes, if played correctly, are equally overpowered (so to speak).
I can't vouch for the WotLK expansion. I have no beta access. But, in any case, I expect more of the same. Balancing, rebalancing, adjusts, and lots of QQ about a give class being OP.
Players will be players.
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What's it like working for a cool division (Score:4, Interesting)
Owned by an evil company?
Dominance (Score:5, Interesting)
Follow Up Question (Score:5, Funny)
And to follow up that question, how does it feel to bask in the glory of your defeated enemies, drinking their blood as they futility attempt to dethrone your empire, unsuccessfully and without any hope? Do you ever break out into song, perhaps in Orcish or Gutterspeak, to said victories, uncontrollably -- or have you become numbed by the whole experience?
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Artwork & Mood Inspiration? (Score:4, Interesting)
Biggest World of Warcraft Disaster? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Biggest World of Warcraft Disaster? (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood [wikipedia.org] mayhaps?
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Starcraft II on a Table Top? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is It Hard Being Number One? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Is It Hard Being Number One? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Is It Hard Being Number One? (Score:4, Interesting)
It certainly WAS popular with Chinese gold farmers up until Jan 2008 ... at which point Runescape decided to rid the game of those pesky "cheaters" by basically abolishing any value exchange greater than 3k gold. (This in an economy where the rarest items were trading for 650 million gold).
They achieved this marvel of control by killing PvP completely, both the Wilderness AND Duelling Arena, not allowing the trading, exchanging or gifting of any item worth more than 3k, and saw their player base drop from typically 200,000 players to about 70,000 in the space of a month.
It's a shame because it WAS a great addictive game in some respects.
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Population Cap in RTS Games (Score:5, Interesting)
World Design (Score:5, Interesting)
Are there any books or resources you recommend that discuss/explain game world design?
Diablo III Mousing (Score:5, Funny)
For Leonard Boyarsky, lead world designer on Diablo III: what mice do those at Blizzard use for Diablo III? Some industrial, made of titanium, super-reliable mouse with smooth right and left clicking action? Or do you run through mice like an Amazon through Tal Rasha's Tomb?
Will Diablo III introduce any new mousing techniques, like perhaps middle clicking, or triple left clicking? How about support for right and left mouse wheel clicking available on logitech and microsoft mice?
The Original Warcraft. (Score:5, Interesting)
This will never happen, but I'd like to see the first Warcraft Open Sourced. I'm referring to the DOS warcraft I from 1994.
Re:The Original Warcraft. (Score:5, Funny)
Please state your answer in the form of a question.
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Port SC 1? (Score:5, Interesting)
Requirements (Score:5, Insightful)
Why fight Linux? (Score:5, Interesting)
Note that I am not asking for Linux "support" as that is much more expensive a proposition. Just a supported or acknowledged linux community...
Battle.net still free? (Score:5, Interesting)
br Are you intentions to keep battle.net free for Diablo and Starcraft? If so, thank you, if not, what will you be offering that would justify the expense?
Starting from scratch (almost) (Score:5, Interesting)
To Jeffrey Kaplan (aka Tigole), game director for World of Warcraft: I notice that in a lot of ways the next expansion is almost throwing out the old WoW systems and replacing them with something radically (for WoW) new (much of the class balance, getting rid of the CC/DPS distinction, gear consolidation, etc). What's it like to commit to making such a big change when you've got a hard deadline to meet and millions of fans who'll hunt you down :) if you wreck the game? How do you evaluate whether it's going to be a good thing or not before committing however many resources it takes to redo (and then test) things?
Consoles (Score:5, Interesting)
With PC gaming dying (Netcraft confirms it)[1], what is Blizzard's take on consoles?
While a game like StarCraft wouldn't work on a traditional console, the argument can be made that Diablo and World of WarCraft could be made to. (There exist crappy little "chat" keyboard controller addons which answers the "keyboard question." Plus all three next-gen consoles support USB keyboards.)
Any thoughts on porting existing games to consoles? Or developing a console-only game?
[1] That's a joke for anyone that missed it. There's an (old) troll about how BSD is dying based on Netcraft's figures. So, no, I don't think PC gaming is really dying.
Glider + other bots (Score:4, Interesting)
Why is there such a negative attitude towards bots and the makers of botting software. The usual arguments of gold farming don't cut it - if everyone has the ability to bot then the value of outside gold sellers automatically deflates.
I don't buy the negative effect on other players argument either; It creates an equal advantage or disadvantage if regulated instead of taking a total prohibition to botting.
It would not be unreasonable to think that botting can coexist inside of MMO's. In fact, I think it could enhance the experience much in the same way that autopilot enhances flying: It didn't replace the pilot, it just allows the pilot to take a more managerial role when needed.
Dear Blizzard (Score:5, Interesting)
Can you explain how loading a copy of your software into memory infringes on your copyright? If I load a million copies of your software into my computers memory have I infringed your copyright a million times? Can you estimate the damages I would need to pay you for loading a copy of World of Warcraft into my computers memory a million times using an unauthorized method?
Thanks.
Re:Dear Blizzard (Score:5, Funny)
I imagine that Blizzard does in fact employ people capable of multiplying some number by a million and getting an accurate result, not just an estimate. You should have gone with a billion, or some other number that defies calculation.
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DRM? (Score:5, Interesting)
Will Starcraft 2 have DRM or any kind of home calling "feature"? If yes, do you honestly believe that it is going to solve the piracy problem beside just annoying legitimate users?
Dear mr. Boyarsky, (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I have learned about Diablo III is that you decided to do away with the classic potion system. No more stacking potions and using them rapidly when your health is drained by some (tough/horde of) enemies. I can understand that you wish to abolish the "inventory obsession" that sometimes plagued D2(haven't played D1). The problem is that the potions were a reaction to rapid health loss by a player. This is all too common in a D2 because of the hordes of enemies and relative high speed of the game.
My question is: Now that you have abolished the potion system in favour of the "health(or mana) orb" system, aren't you afraid that this will affect the speed of the game? The fact that you lose a lot of health was part of the exciting rush in the game resulting in the player always being alert to any danger. Will that Diablo feel persist or will this be a real breaking point in the Diablo series?
Re:Dear mr. Boyarsky, (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that the potions were a reaction to rapid health loss by a player. This is all too common in a D2 because of the hordes of enemies and relative high speed of the game.
My question is: Now that you have abolished the potion system in favour of the "health(or mana) orb" system, aren't you afraid that this will affect the speed of the game? The fact that you lose a lot of health was part of the exciting rush in the game resulting in the player always being alert to any danger.
The thing is, as long as you had a belt full of rejuvies, you weren't in any danger (and as soon as you get low you'd Town Portal and burn a couple more to make sure you got through to restock).
Which means that the only method they had of actually putting you in danger/killing you was to do ludicrous amounts of damage in an extremely short amount of time. i.e. MSFELE or even worse MSLE with anti-resist aura, or the necro boss's corpse explosion, and so on. Things that felt extremely cheap, especially because 90% of the time there was no danger whatsoever. I hated e.g. running up to a pack where unbeknownst to me there was a similarly-shaded boss stuck in the middle and click once and *wham* You Have Died "WTF?!"
When describing the new system, the devs mentioned this fact explicitly, that the only way to "challenge" you was to outright kill you and that they think this was silly, which makes me very happy.
I do share your concern it may make the game slower, but if done right they can keep the pace going nicely. They just need to balance the amount of health orbs that drop. As long as your survival is dependent on you taking down enemies (or hurting the boss if as I assume they drop orbs on taking damage) as fast as they are hurting you, then it could still be frantic but even more challenging (or at least, challenging more of the time instead of super-easy most of the time and insanely cheap the rest).
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The Colbert Report asked Rush this, so... (Score:5, Funny)
DRM? (Score:5, Interesting)
To all:
We've all seen the fallout from EA's decision to put heavy-handed DRM into Spore. What is your position on DRM and its place in gaming? Do you think it is fair that a single-player game require an internet connection in order to phone-home for anti-piracy reasons?
Thanks.
-molo
Cross-platform gaming? (Score:5, Interesting)
To all:
What is your position on cross-platform computer gaming? Is there a viable market for MacOS and Linux gaming in your view?
Thanks
-molo
Re:Cross-platform gaming? (Score:5, Interesting)
Seeing as Blizzard is one of the handful of game companies that release their games simultaneously for Windows and Mac OS X, I think that already answers your question about Mac OS X.
Your question really should be "will you ever make ports for Linux?".
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Glider (Score:4, Interesting)
To Jeffrey Kaplan (aka Tigole), game director for World of Warcraft: Now that you've prevailed against the published of the Glider software and (via precedent) earned strange new powers to control the software your customers can and cannot run, are your users enraged or merely apathetic?
Further, how much has this activity hindered the gold sellers your product is lousy with? Zero percent? Five percent (MoE +/- .05)?
Dear Blizzard: (Score:5, Funny)
Is it cold in your office?
New game series? (Score:5, Interesting)
There's no doubt you guys could be successful forever by continuing to make games in the warcraft/starcraft/diablo universes, but have there been any discussions about doing something totally new?
Role Playing in Diablo III (Score:4, Interesting)
What specifically will this entail? Will these be limited to the Bioware [Good/Evil/Mercenary] decisions, or opt for the VTMB/The Witcher system of [no right choice/moral grays]?
Also, how much impact can we have on the world if the dialogs are optional?
Is there a warcraft 4 comeing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there a warcraft 4 coming?
Diablo III LAN Multiplayer? (Score:5, Interesting)
I ask because I spent over 3000 hours grinding characters with my brother on a LAN, and still don't have any sort of reliable (lag-free) internet connection at home.
Will there at least be some sort of Open Battle.net on which we can use mods and/or play single player characters?
for Jeffrey Kaplan aka Tigole (Score:5, Funny)
Where exactly is the USB key with the "Sword of a Thousand Truths" right now?? and exactly how is it guarded??
Digital Download (Score:4, Interesting)
PvE:raiding::PvP:arena ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you concerned about the arena becoming the pvp equivalent of raiding? That is to say, the one blessed path to endgame progression, and anyone who doesn't enjoy it be damned?
I will admit my bias: I canceled my account three days ago over just this issue, after playing for over four years. I spent a long time being frustrated by getting only second-rate pve content because I wasn't interested in raiding; I would have canceled long ago, but I found and began enjoying pvp. Now I'm seeing pvp deteriorate in the same way: the same monomania on one very small corner of it, to the detriment of everything else.
The raiding/pve issue has never been solved to this day, so I'm afraid I see little hope that the arena/pvp issue will be. Or can you offer us any assurances that it might someday be possible to pursue these broad facets of the game without needing participate in the extremely narrow subset of them that have been deemed endgame-worthy?
Re:To any of them (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Six Sigma at Blizzard (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Map Creator for SCII (Score:4, Interesting)
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