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Ask Blizzard Employees About Things That Matter

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on 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.

44 of 504 comments (clear)

  1. Classes, Races & Professions by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    To Jeffrey Kaplan (aka Tigole), game director for World of Warcraft: How does your team balance class, race & profession specific traits? I have seen the new trees for the expansion & I naturally have some concerns. But how do you measure when something is 'unfair?' Do you measure in game reports, analyze logs, play them yourselves? What is your strategy?

    To Chris Sigaty, lead producer on StarCraft II: How do you balance races, units, health, damage, effects, et cetera?

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Classes, Races & Professions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I'd be especially interested in Chris Sigaty's response to SCII balancing. SC's faction balance was masterful, and is part of the reason it has held up so well. WoW's balance as described above... not so much (cf. AV terrain balance, main city imbalance when world pvp mattered, Horde racials, recurring Warrior pvp dominance, evidence of the Shaman class being ignored since release, etc).

      SCII has a significant legacy to fill here.

    2. Re:Classes, Races & Professions by Slime-dogg · · Score: 3, Interesting

      To Tigole,

      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.

      --
      You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
  2. What's it like working for a cool division by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Owned by an evil company?

  3. Dominance by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    To Jeffrey Kaplan (aka Tigole), game director for World of Warcraft: Do you feel that Blizzard's dominance hurts other MMORPGs? Do you see yourself in direct competition with the other studios & products? Do you ever play these games to see what has been reused or what is new? Do you ever feel like another MMO has extended from World of Warcraft? Do you owe any credit to previous MMOs that have influenced your creations?

    --
    My work here is dung.
  4. Artwork & Mood Inspiration? by eldavojohn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    To Leonard Boyarsky, lead world designer on Diablo III: Where do you find inspiration for designing Diablo III? Even though I was young, I was always impressed with the darkness and feel to Diablo I & II. Do you turn to novels? Fantasy artwork? Your own imagination? What are your influences?

    --
    My work here is dung.
  5. Biggest World of Warcraft Disaster? by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    To Jeffrey Kaplan (aka Tigole), game director for World of Warcraft: What has been the most disastrous or disheartening experience in your time as game director for World of Warcraft? Duping, gold, farmers, MMOGlider, barrens chat, server failures, what?

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Biggest World of Warcraft Disaster? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      -- BEGIN RANT --
      Is there plans to fix the current duping and skill gainging bugs/exploits...

      I have told PERSONALLY the person who programmed the areas in question and he said the skill gaining one is unpatchable... without a redesign of game mechanics. However, its not always about fixing things, sometimes you just need to make it so its no longer profitable to use an exploit. The problem in question is its possible to get to 375 in mining/herbalism in a few hours (how long to mine 375 times?), in 7 herbs/viens. However, the use of such an exploit would be greatly curtailed if you could put an innate cooldown on the objects in question.

      Likewise, you can dupe any stackable item in the game. Some limitation not that im willing to discuss here... and just so you know I havent played the game in ~1.5 months so they could be patched, but i know most/all still aren't.

      To solve like 90% of your code issues "STOP! programming linearly" a function is a container, in that container some other functions are called, and some variables get changed. If the functions DO NOT affect the variables and CAN return errors, move them to the top of the function.

      EXAMPLE:
      DO NOT - Drink potion -> Add life -> Decrease_quanity()
      DO - Drink Potion -> Decrease_Quanity() -> add life

      The problem here in this COMPLETELY FAKE (as in i dont think you can do this in game, could be wrong), is if you can make it error in decrease_quanity(), then LUA pops the function and it ends... you still get the "add life," LUA does not step backwards. Nor does it do a lot of error handling in what I have seen, it just ends function and continues on its merry way. Moving decrease_quanity(), if a way was found to exploit this, would NOT allow people to get free life, if this was exploitable, as i said I do not know of one for this, just an example, yada, yada, yada.

      Move BENEFICIAL affects to after all function/error handlers (or lack there of in stack/pop LUA). This is part of the problem with the current duping bug.

      This is exactly the same issue that caused the Free casting Inner focus bug of the past with priests, until they finally added C/d to the flag being consumed. Spliting functions in to seperation of concerns is also a good fix, many congratulations on the times you fixed things that way.

      To date I have found 7 bugs/exploits in your game (and now only the 2 I named remain). The most of any other game I have ever played, and I dont really look for exploits... Likewise, when I did stop playing, your game was the longest I did play. Know my intent of this post for *if* I was malicious in any way I would have posted how these exploits work, I have no such discontent for a game I enjoyed.

      -- END RANT --

  6. Starcraft II on a Table Top? by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    To Chris Sigaty, lead producer on StarCraft II: We discussed Warcraft III being played on a table top a while ago. Do you see this technology taking off in the near future? Are you planning to do any testing with your manipulation of units to see if this will be a possibility for gamers? Do you think this will ever be commonplace?

    --
    My work here is dung.
  7. Is It Hard Being Number One? by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    To Paul Sams, Blizzard COO: What is the hardest thing in managing the operations of what is arguably the largest MMO? At 10,000,000 subscribers, what are your number one concerns? What challenges do you face in an average day?

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Is It Hard Being Number One? by daveime · · Score: 3, 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.

  8. Population Cap in RTS Games by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    To Chris Sigaty, lead producer on StarCraft II: Are you planning on a population cap in Starcraft II? I assume this is true and it has been something that annoyed me, even if it is a soft cap. I understand that building the perfect army is more desirable than meat grinding a thousand of the same unit but what is the function of a population cap? I understand machines used to have severely limited resources so it was necessary but what about now?

    --
    My work here is dung.
  9. Six Sigma at Blizzard by eldavojohn · · Score: 1, Interesting

    To Paul Sams, Blizzard COO: Has Blizzard achieved Six Sigma? Is this even important in creating MMO software? If so, how do you apply it exactly?

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Six Sigma at Blizzard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
      As a Six Sigma, and LEAN, Green Belt I would probably say

      That you are a giant waste of space, if not an outright fraud? We have people like you at our company too. I consistently prove how incompetent you are with actual numbers so the distant officers you report to have to make up numbers that sound better so they can report another "success". I did manage to get one Director "reassigned" to a something I'm sure he's going to quit soon because at least the local operations VP is a smart guy and I showed hum numbers that caught that buffoon in a lie. I'm working on the Six Sigma VP's house of cards now so I can hopefully get these wastes of space out of our production floor. It's funny, I use your very own methodology to hang you. You get the Define and Measure okay, but you're utter failures at Analyzing which means you have no hope of Improving so you end up Lying. I was hired to do what you claim to be doing, long before this fad took over and I'm a hell of a lot better at it. I guess I should thank you since I almost worked myself out of a job. Now I clean up after you.

      I have yet to meet a Six Sigma drone who wasn't a willing accomplice in the fraud or just a bumbling idiot. Hopefully you fall into the latter category. Six Sigma: The Emperor's New Clothes.

  10. World Design by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    To Leonard Boyarsky, lead world designer on Diablo III: How do you determine the enclosing size of a world or level/map for a game? I have played many games and those that have an 'open' feel to the world seem to possess more possibilities for me. Games where I could go out and get completely lost were much more exciting than a game like Warcraft or Diablo II. How do you determine whether you go with a 'closed and finite world' vs an 'open seemingly boundless world?'

    Are there any books or resources you recommend that discuss/explain game world design?

    --
    My work here is dung.
  11. The Original Warcraft. by Zombie+Ryushu · · Score: 4, 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.

  12. Port SC 1? by Tubal-Cain · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is there any possibility of there being an official port of StarCraft 1 to StarCraft 2's game engine?

  13. Why fight Linux? by houstonbofh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There is ample proof of WOW working (somewhat) in WINE, so why not work with the Linux community?

    Note that I am not asking for Linux "support" as that is much more expensive a proposition. Just a supported or acknowledged linux community...

  14. Battle.net still free? by snowraver1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    To: Paul Sams, Blizzard COO.
    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?

    --
    Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. This comment may not be copied in any way including, but not limited to caching.
    1. Re:Battle.net still free? by ildon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This has been answered in the past, at least for Diablo 3. There will continue to be a free version of Battle.net, but you can optionally pay for a service that will keep your characters permanently, instead of deleting them after ~30 days like Diablo 2 currently does.

      I forget what other features they talked about (if any).

  15. Permit me to be Blaze but... by tekiegreg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Do you guys plan on answering the rest of the interview questions (make this one first) like the last interview we were given at Blizzard?

    Just want to know now so I can tune out of the rest of the questions if the answer is "yes". Thanks for the help Blizzard!

    --
    ...in bed
  16. Starting from scratch (almost) by n+dot+l · · 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?

  17. Consoles by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

  18. Glider + other bots by thed00d · · Score: 4, Interesting

    To Jeffrey Kaplan,
    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.

    --
    http://www.accelerateglobalwarming.com
  19. StarCraft II by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Chris Sigaty: Are there plans to support simultanmultiple displays in StarCraft II? (like how supreme commander supports 2 monitors)

    I would build a PC with 4 cards and 8 monitors if SC2 supported it!

  20. Dear Blizzard by DigitAl56K · · 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.

  21. fourth race by BCristi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    To Chris Sigaty, lead producer on StarCraft II: Will it ever be a fourth race in StarCraft II? And why didn't you kept all the units from StarCraft I?

    --
    2+2=5 for really big values of 2!
  22. DRM? by chord.wav · · 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?

  23. Dear mr. Boyarsky, by Daimanta · · 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?

    --
    Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
    1. Re:Dear mr. Boyarsky, by Chris+Burke · · Score: 3, 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).

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
  24. Diablo 3 and Warden by harl · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is Diablo 3 going to use any of the Warden rootkit technology to police online play?

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    I find being offended by me offensive.
  25. Will it run linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There is more gamers using linux on PC hardware
    then Macs gamers. Give them quality games and they will play it on linux.

    Why Blizzard can't see this growing market?

    -Bob

  26. DRM? by molo · · 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

    --
    Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
  27. Cross-platform gaming? by molo · · 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

    --
    Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
    1. Re:Cross-platform gaming? by Yvan256 · · Score: 4, 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?".

  28. Glider by jesdynf · · Score: 3, 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)?

    --
    Yahoo! Pipes are awesome. How awesome? http://pipes.yahoo.com/jesdynf/slashdot
  29. New game series? by MooseMuffin · · 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?

  30. Role Playing in Diablo III by thepotoo · · Score: 3, Interesting
    For Leonard Boyarsky, lead world designer of Diablo III: I'm really excited that Diablo III will include more options for players to interact with the world (source).

    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?

    --
    Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
  31. Diablo III LAN Multiplayer? by thepotoo · · Score: 4, Interesting
    For Leonard Boyarsky, lead world designer of Diablo III: why was the decision made to cut LAN play from Diablo III? Simply to stop piracy, or to reduce hacking, or something else?

    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?

    --
    Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
  32. Re:Map Creator for SCII by i.of.the.storm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Don't underestimate the complexity of DotA though. I'm almost certain it would take far longer than a week or two, especially since people would need to learn the new language in the SCII map editor. And Icefrog has said before that he's not sure when/whether he'll move to SCII, so I doubt he would change his mind right after SCII came out, and I don't think there are many people who know the intricacies of DotA as well as Icefrog, although I don't know what happened to the original mapmakers (Eul, Guinsoo, etc.)

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    All your base are belong to Wii.
  33. Digital Download by omega8932 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I recently downloaded Starcraft directly from the Blizzard store because I lost my old discs for the game and some friends and I had the urge to play it. So, my question is, since you opened up the new store and offered digital downloads of your older games, are there any plans to use this to distribute your new games (Such as Diablo III or Wrath of the Lich King) through this avenue?

  34. PvE:raiding::PvP:arena ? by Onan · · Score: 4, 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?

    1. Re:PvE:raiding::PvP:arena ? by Onan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If they wanted to slow the rate at which pvp gear is acquired, they could have increased item costs or capped weekly honor accrual. If they wanted to skew gearing rates more in favor of success, they could have steepened the ratio of rewards for winners and losers in battlegrounds.

      But what they did instead of either of those was to force everyone who wants to progress in pvp to play one extremely specific variety of it that they've recently tacked on. A variety that many of us don't enjoy, so I can assure you that it would only draw more AFKers and people slogging dutifully through it like a chore, so they can get back to the battlegrounds that they actually find fun.

      The post you cite still discusses the arena as the pvp endgame, and talks about all other pvp as just a stepping stone on the way to it. This is, as I said, entirely too reminiscent of Blizzard's other belief that raiding is the only real pve endgame, and that all other pve content is just a stepping stone one passes through on the way there.

  35. WoW Geography by Moredhel27 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    To Jeffrey Kaplan (World Of Warcraft):

    Given that tunnelling tests (lowerping, internode) have shown conclusively that Australian players experience an artifical ~200ms latency increase due to the network in the US,
    are Oceanic players ever likely to see servers actually in the Oceanic region?

    Would blizzard consider forcing an across-the-board latency for all PVP encounters?
    ie, a US team against an Oceanic team in Arena would have their latency artificially increased to match the Oceanic team