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The State of Blizzard's Union
Gamasutra has an extensive interview with Senior Vice President Frank Pearce (one of the company's original founders), and Starcraft II producer Chris Sigaty. They discuss some elements of the the company's future. They discuss their expectations for Starcraft II, some hints of what's to come in World of Warcraft, and word that 50 people are working on the mysterious 'Team 3' game. "Pearce: Our global headcount is like, 2700. Most of that is customer service for World of Warcraft. I mean in terms of development staff... it's probably around 350. For all of Blizzard. World of Warcraft development team is about 135 people...40 for you [indicates Chris' Starcraft 2 team], 50 for ... Team 3 ... Gamasutra: Team 3? What's Team 3 working on? Pearce: Team 3 is working on something really awesome. I will totally tell you, it's really awesome ... Nope, can't give you any hints. Gamasutra: Well, as long as it's awesome."
One assumes that's the Team 3 project, since it's been more or less confirmed.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
"World of Warcraft 2: The Search for More Money."
The first page is where I noticed the biggest difference between Blizzard and "the other mmorpg" studios. This representative wasn't dismissing his competition or making disparaging remarks about it. He was playing nice. I figure down deep they know that these two games are not real threats to WOW... too many have been given that title only to falter.
I did appreciate his comments on developers. The job is pretty much thankless when everything is going right. Do your job right and most people don't care. Have problems creep up and your the center of some not so good attention.
It was also interesting to see how many people they "admit" to working on WOW and Starcraft 2. I assume the other is D3. 2000+ others? Most support. I can see that considering they are selling a service when it comes to the numbers WOW has.
The rule is, always talk nice about your competition. Then again when your at the top you don't have a reason to trash talk
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The following is my criteria for measuring word counts:
totally - any use, although it includes good (i.e. meaning "completely") and bad (i.e. saying "totally awesome") uses.
like (good) - means the same as any of the following: such that, such as, for example, as if, around, in the neighborhood of, etc..
like (bad) - the use indicates a pause in speech "..uhm.."
Some examples/excerpts from the interview:
- "I think it was more like, they said "oh God, white barbarians have invaded!" - page 4
- "We're like the NFL Commissioner or something." -- example of "good" use of the word like; they aren't literally the NFL Commisioner.
- "I will totally tell you, it's really awesome." -- page 5
Lameness filter is giving me a hard time with formatting and I suck at this. Here's my attempt: So I think you totally overblew the "totally" issue, but like you said the use of "like" is likely to be bad in these personal interviews.Actually, that space fighter sim sounds good. Of course, I've been looking for a good Space Combat fighter ever since WC:P and Freespace 2.
Do you Gentoo!?
Blizzard lost all credibility as far as I am concerned with bnetd.
Yes, how dare they try to stop people from pirating their games!
Sorry, but sometimes things cost money.
The "everything should be free" crowd will mod me down, I'm sure, so posting anonymously.
Some speculation over at wowinsider.com that Blizzard's Third Project is internally called "Hydra".
Ok, if you are going to have to have this discussion AGAIN, let's at least discuss it honestly. Yes, bnetd was a server. No argument there. But for you to say that it had absolutely nothing to do with piracy is a flat out lie. bnetd did enable piracy because it allowed people who did not buy the game to play each other online (no cd key check). The primary users of bnetd were people who did not buy a copy of the game. I have absolutely zero sympathy for bnetd because of this...plus the fact that Blizzard does not charge for their battle.net service and that it is still running today...after all these years. Blizzard is about the least evil large company you are going to find. If you aren't going to support them over bnetd, then you have either never written software or lack the ability to understand the situation that Blizzard was in.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Gamasutra: Well, as long as it's awesome.
Now that's what I call hard hitting reporting! Gamasutra's not afraid to ask the tough questions.
"What kind of music do pirates listen to?" -Paul Maud'dib
"Yeeeaaarrrrr n' Bee!!" -Stilgar, Leader of Sietch Tabr
Two words, Open Battle.net. Additionally, how many characters did you have that it was impossible to commit to playing them each for one hour in a three month timespan? Lastly, I have my doubts that Bnetd or anything related to it was hack-proof. Speaking of which...
Case in point.
Once again, Open Battle.net. Also, that's not a bug, it's a feature.
I don't see how this is even an issue unless you enjoyed hanging out in the chat channels. Spambots didn't join anything but the main channels, mostly the trade channels, and couldn't join your game if you gave it a password.
I'm unimpressed by your ability to skip #2, rather than just spend 15 seconds to go back and properly number your countdown.
Two words, and I repeat, Open Battle.net. I made my own mods, and played them with friends in this manner.
In short, the only thing Bnetd provided that Blizzard hadn't already given you the ability to do was play games without buying them.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!